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Supreme Court Upholds Acquittal in Double Murder Case Citing Investigative Lapses and Witness Credibility
The has dismissed an appeal by the State of Himachal Pradesh, upholding the acquittal of a woman accused of murdering her stepmother and minor stepbrother. In a detailed judgment, the Court underscored that an investigating officer's duty is to collect evidence, not create it, and that a cannot sustain a conviction.
A bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Vijay Bishnoi found that the prosecution had failed to prove its case , with the 's acquittal representing a .
The Case: A Double Murder and a Role Reversal
The case dates back to , when the bodies of Mithilesh Kumari (D-1) and her six-year-old son Bhupinder Singh (D-2) were discovered in their locked house in Diur, Himachal Pradesh. The accused, Anchla @ Chanchla, was the daughter of Mithilesh's husband from his first marriage. Prosecution alleged she killed them to inherit property that her father had allegedly bequeathed to D-2.
The trial court convicted Anchla under , relying on : she was with the deceased, had a thumb injury, her DNA was found at the crime scene, and keys to the house were recovered at her instance. The reversed the conviction, citing discrepancies and unreliable witnesses. The State appealed.
State's Arguments: Circumstantial Chain Intact
The State argued that the had discarded cogent evidence on conjectures. It emphasized the between Anchla's blood and blood scraped from a trunk in the victims' room, coupled with her bleeding thumb injury treated the next day. The State also relied on testimonies of a taxi driver (PW-4) who drove her from Chamba to Diur and back, and a hotel worker (PW-18) who saw her at a hotel that night.
Defense: Broken Links and Created Evidence
Anchla's counsel countered that the "" evidence was weak given the six-day gap, the taxi driver and hotel witness were unreliable, and the was not conclusive since she regularly visited the house. The lock recovery was disputed, and motive was unproven.
Court's Incisive Analysis: The Dangers of "Created" Witnesses
The Supreme Court conducted a meticulous review. It found the last-seen testimony of PW-1, the victim's father, unreliable because he had improved upon his earlier statement. The Court held that the time-gap between the alleged last sighting on and the discovery of bodies on left room for third-party intervention.
Most critically, the Court examined the evidence of the taxi driver (PW-4) and hotel worker (PW-18). The investigating officer (PW-20) could not explain why, when, or under what circumstances he recorded their statements. The verdict emphasized a foundational principle:
"It is well settled that the role of the investigating officer is to collect evidence and not to create one. Where there is no occasion for the investigating officer to record statement of a person, or for that person to impart information to the police, yet, the police proceeds to record his statement without narrating the circumstance in which it was considered necessary to record his statement, a serious doubt arises as to whether that witness has been set up to
."
The Court noted that traveling in a taxi or staying at a hotel are not inherently incriminating actions that would prompt a person to approach the police. The failure to produce any hotel register further dented PW-18's credibility. Consequently, both witnesses were deemed untrustworthy, fatally weakening the prosecution's timeline.
DNA Evidence Sufficient but Not Conclusive
While the was scientifically sound, the Court held it did not prove guilt. Anchla was a regular visitor, and her blood was not found on the victims' clothes or any ligature used for strangulation. The possibility that the blood was from an earlier visit could not be ruled out.
Key Observations on Investigation
The Court flagged a serious : the failure to obtain from . Such data could have corroborated or demolished the prosecution's claim about the accused's presence. The deceased's mobile CDR was not even exhibited.
Regarding the , the Court found that the prosecution did not prove that the lock tested was the one that actually secured the door. PW-3, a witness to the lock seizure, stated he saw the lock on the door handle , not on the latch.
Decision: Acquittal Stands
The Supreme Court concluded that the were neither fully established nor formed an . The 's acquittal was a reasonable view of the evidence. The appeal was dismissed, and Anchla's acquittal was upheld.
The judgment serves as a strong reminder that in cases, each link must be forged with certainty, and investigating agencies must refrain from manufacturing evidence to fill gaps. As the Court reiterated,
"the
of the court is to ensure that
is prevented—and a miscarriage from acquitting the guilty is no less than from convicting the innocent."
