In Brief
Two men were convicted of murder in connection with the death of a village resident in Uttarakhand in 1997. The High Court had reduced the conviction to culpable homicide. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and acquitted both men. The Court found that while the prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence, key circumstances—including the deceased being last seen 16 hours before his body was discovered with a significant geographical distance, the recovery of a meat bag without identification linking it to the accused, and suspicious recovery of stones allegedly pointing to by the accused—did not meet the legal standard for proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The Court emphasized that in circumstantial evidence cases, the facts must form a complete chain unerringly pointing to guilt, not merely suspicion.
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