Evidence – Circumstantial evidence – Admissibility of evidence of witnesses and recovery – Admissibility of CCTV evidence – Requirement of certificate u/s.65 B(4) – On facts, conviction of the appellant for offences punishable u/ss.302, 364, 366, 376(2)(m), 376A, 392 rw ss.397 and 201 IPC for rape and murder of the deceased and sentenced to death by the courts below – Hypothesis of guilt, if established on basis of the circumstantial evidence:
Held: There are gaping holes in the prosecution story leading to the irresistible conclusion that there is something more than what meets the eye – Circumstances relied upon when taken together do not lead to the sole hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and the chain is not complete – Test of Sharad Birdhichand Sarda’s case on circumstantial evidence not satisfied – Sustaining conviction based on this sketchy and disjointed evidence not justified – On the available evidence, extremely unsafe to sustain conviction against the appellant – Prosecution did not establish its case beyond reasonable doubt – Certificate u/s.65-B(4) is a condition precedent to the admissibility of evidence by way of electronic record – When the prosecution was aware of the need for the s.65-B (4) certificate and they themselves collected it for the CDRs, no reason as to why they did not collect the same for the CCTV footage – No reliance can be placed on the CCTV footage, insofar as an attempt was made by the prosecution to attribute that the appellant and the deceased were last seen together based on the CCTV footage, and is eschewed the same from consideration – Evidence of the prosecution witnesses for the last seen together as well as evidence of the prosecution witnesses for sighting the appellant, fails to inspire the necessary confidence to clinchingly establish the circumstances of last seen – Test identification parade vitiated as the photographs of the appellants were all over the place in the media – Evidence of the dog walker to establish presence of the appellant in the vicinity of the crime unnatural – He is not the witness in the last seen category, but only claims to have seen the appellant under circumstances which are doubtful, thus, his evidence is discarded – Also, the evidence given by other prosecution witnesses do not constitute circumstantial evidence having any nexus with the commission of the crime, thus, totally discarded from the chain of circumstances – Extra judicial confession of the prosecution witness-so called friend of the appellant, by its very nature, is a weak piece of evidence and is rejected – There are so many omissions in the statement of the said prosecution witness, as also no corroboration in material particulars – Evidence of recovery of articles also not impressive – Furthermore, the prosecution not been able to answer the infirmities pointed out – Thus, no conviction for the offence charged could be sustained against the appellant – Impugned judgment set aside and the appellant is acquitted – Penal Code, 1860 – Evidence Act, 1872. [Paras 49, 51, 70, 72, 75, 77, 81, 90, 104, 120, 121, 123, 124]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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