The judgment establishes the principle that in cases relying on circumstantial evidence, the complete chain of events must point to the guilt of the accused, and every hypothesis of innocence must be capable of being negatived.

ORDER :

1. This appeal is directed against the judgment and order of the Division Bench of the High Court convicting and sentencing the appellant under Sections 302 & 201 Indian Penal Code. Admittedly, and as the learned advocate in support of the appeal very strongly contended, the entire matter hinges on circumstantial evidence since there is no direct evidence available on record. Before, however, proceeding further in the matter the observations of this Court in Pawan Kumar v. State of Haryana, 2001 (3) SCC 628 seems to be rather apposite and the same is stated herein below Incidentally, success of the prosecution on the basis of circumstantial evidence will however depend on the availability of a complete chain of events so as not to leave any doubt for the conclusion that the act must have been done by the accused person. While, however, it is true that there should be no missing links, in the chain of events so far as the prosecution is concerned, but it is not that every one of the links must appear on the surface of the evidence, since some of these links may only be inferred from the proven facts.

2. Circumstances of strong suspicion without, however, any conclusive evidence are not sufficient to justify the conviction and it is on this score that great care must be taken in evaluating the circumstantial evidence. In any event, on the availability of two inferences, the one in favour of the accused must be accepted and the law is well settled on this score, as such we need not dilate much in that regard excepting, however, noting the observations of this Court in the case of State of U.P. v. Ashok Kumar Srivastava wherein this Court in para 9 of the report observed: (SCC p.95, para 9)

"9. This Court has, time out of number observed that while appreciating circumstantial evidence the court must adopt a very cautious approach and should record a conviction only if all the links in the chain are complete pointing to the guilt of the accused and every hypothesis of innocence is capable of being negatived on evidence. Great care must be taken in evaluating circumstantial evidence and if the evidence relied on is reasonably capable of two inferences; the one in favour of the accused must be accepted. The circumstance relied upon must be found to have been fully established and the cumulative effect of all the facts so established must be consistent only with the hypothesis of guilt. But this is not to say that the prosecution must meet any and every hypothesis put forward by the accused however far-fetched and fanciful it might be. Nor does it mean that prosecution evidence must be rejected on the slightest doubt because the law permits rejection if the doubt is reasonable and not otherwise."

3. The other aspect of the issue is that the evidence on record, ascribed to be circumstantial, ought to justify the inferences of the guilt from the incriminating facts and circumstances which are incompatible with the innocence of the accused or guilt of any other person. The observations of this Court in the case of Balwinder Singh v. State of Punjab lends concurrence to the above. Turning on the factual score, it appears that the father-in-law of the unfortunate girl had lodged an FIR on 14th May, 1983 at about 1400 hours that Bai Savita got burnt during the preparation of food and died. The police patel submitted report to the Sub-Inspector and subsequently investigation followed. The post-mortem report, however, recorded that the death of Bai Savita took place by throttling and suffocation and thereafter her body was set on fire. The learned Sessions Judge, however, did not place much credence on the evidence available on record and acquitted the accused persons. Exhibit 20, on which High Court has placed very strong reliance, has to be considered. On perusal of Exhibit 20, being a post mortem report, and the deposition of Dr.Parikh, who conducted the post-mortem of the dead body, a big deep cut was found on the neck of the dead bod