VARUN CHAUDHARYversusSTATE OF RAJASTHAN

                    [2010] 13 (ADDL.) S.C.R. 296

A                       VARUN CHAUDHARY
                                 v.
                  , STATE OF RAJASTHAN
                 (~riminal Appeal No. 705 of 2008)
                         OCTOBER 29, 2010
B
      [DR. MUKdNDAKAM SHARMA AND ANIL R. DAVE,
                        JJ.)

         PENAL CODE, 1860:
c      s.302 - Conviction under, by courts below, based on
  circumstantial evidence -Held: In the case of circumstantial
  evidence, there must be a complete chain of evidence which
  would lead to a conclusion that the accused was the only
  person, who could have committed the offence and nobody
D else - In the instant case, there is nothing to show that the
  accused had committed the offence - Judgments of courts
  below set aside and the accused acquitted - Evidence -
  Circumstantial evidence - Test Identification parade.
E       EVIDENCE:
          Identification of vehicle - A motor cycle recovered as the
    vehicle used in the offence - Held: Unless tyre marks are
    lifted from the place of occurrence and upon its comparison
F   with the tyre marks of the motor cycle recovered, are found to
    be the same, it cannot be said that the motor cycle recovered
    was used in the offence - In the instant case, there is no such
    evidence - Penal Code, 1860 - s. 302.
       The father of P.W. 11 was found dead in the night of
G 22.8.2000 at a place near his residence. In the course of
  investigation, the appellants (A-1 and A-2) and A-3 were
  arrested. A knife from A-1 and blood-stained clothes of
  A-3 were recovered. The trial court, in view of recovery
  of the knife from A-1, the incised wounds found on the
H                                 296
  VARUN CHAUDHARY v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN                297


body of the deceased, and the evidence of PW-3 and PW-        A
6, held A-1 guilty and convicted him u/s 302 IPC. A-1 filed
an appeal against his conviction; whereas the State
appealed against acquittal of A-2 and A-3. The High Court
dismissed the appeal of A-1, allowed that of the State and
convicted and sentenced A-2 and A-3 also u/s 302 read         B
with s. 34 IPC. Aggrieved, A-1 and A-2 filed the appeals.

    Allowing the appeals, the Court
    HELO: 1.1 It was a case of circumstantial evidence        C
as nobody had seen the commission of the offence. It is
a settled legal position that in the case of circumstantial
evidence, there must be a complete chain of evidence
which would lead to a conclusion that the accused was
the only person, who could have committed the offence         D
and none else. In the instant case, there is nothing to
show that the accused had committed the offence and
on the basis of the material on record, it would be
dangerous to convict the accused. [para 3 and 24] [302-
C; 309-0-E]                                                   E
     G. Parashwanath vs. State of Karnataka, 2010 (10)
SCR 377 = (2010) 8 SCC 593; C. Chenga Reddy v. State of
A.P. 1996 (3) Suppl. SCR 479 = (1996) 10 SCC 193 - relied
on.
                                                              F
     1.2 The Home Guard, PW-3, who was on duty near
the place of the incident on the date of occurrence, stated
that he had seen three persons on a motor cycle around
midnight. However, he stated that he could not identify
the persons on the motor cycle. Similarly, the Police         G
Constable, PW-6, had stated that around 12 midnight on
22.8.2000, he had seen three persons on a motor cycle
and he whistled so as to stop the said motor cyclist but
it did not stop. It is pertinent to note that these two
witnesses did not say that they had seen any of the           H
    298   SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2010) 13 (ADDL.) S.C.R.


A accused. They did not even see the faces of the three
  persons, who were on the motor cycle. In these set of
  circumstances, having identification parade would be
  futile and, therefore, there was no test identification
  parade. rhus, nobody had seen any of the accused. [para
B 5, 6 and 20] [302-F-H; 303-A; 307-E-F]
      1.3 So far as identification of the motor cycle is
  concerned, PW-6 merely stated that he saw one digit of
  registration number of the motor cycle, which wa!> '9'. It
  would be dangerous to believe that the motor cycle
C recovered, which also had digit '9' in its number, was
  used in the offence. On such scanty evidence it cannot
  be said that the accused had been identified or the motor
  cycle which had been recovered was the one which was
  used by the accused at the time of the offence. [para 20]
D [307-F-H]
       1.4 The so-called recovery of knife and blood stained
  clothes would not help the prosecution. Recovery of the
  motor cycle cannot be said to be proved because PW-9
E admitted the fact that he had signed the recovery
  panchnama in the police station; whereas another
  witness, P.W.25, could not establish recovery of the knife
  as he was not present while the knife was recovered.
  Moreover, the knife was never produced before the court
  nor was it shown to the accused and, therefore, the said
F evidence could not have been relied upon by the courts
  below for passing the order of conviction. [para 21] [308-
  A-C]
       Abdulwahab Abdulmajid Baloch vs. State of Gujarat,
G 2009 (4) SCR 956 = 2009 (11) sec 625; and Mohd. Abdul
  Hafeez v. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1983 SC 367 -
  referred to.
       1.5 So as to establish the presence of the motor cycle
  at the place of the offence, the prosecution must show
H that the tyre marks which were found at the place of the
     VARUN CHAUDHARY v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN               299


offence were that of the motor cycle used by the                A
accused. There is no evidence and not even a reference
to the fact that any one from Forensic Science Laboratory
or from the police personnel had lifted marks of the motor
cycle tyre from t~e place of the offence so that the same
could be compared with the tyre marks of the motor cycle        B
alleged to have been used in the offence. Therefore, it
cannot be said that the motor cycle recovered was used
in the offence. It is pertinent to note that marks of the
motor cycle tyre which were received by the FSL were
not in a sealed condition. These facts clearly denote that      c
the marks of the motor cycle tyre could not have been
relied upon either by the trial court or by the High Court
for establishing that the motor cycle having particular tyre
marks was used in the alleged offence. [para 22] [308-C-
G]
                                                                D
     1.6 It is also pertinent to note that the prosecution
could not establish the purpose for which the deceased
was murdered by the accused. Of course, it is not
 necessary that in every case the motive of the accused
should be proved. However, in the instant case, where           E
there is no eye witness nor any scientific evidence to
connect the accused with the offence, the prosecution
ought to have established that there was some motive
behind commission of the offence of murder. It was the
case of the prosecution that the deceased, an Income            F
Tax Officer, had raided the premises belonging to some
scrap de;:ilers and, therefore, he had received some
threats from such scrap dealers. It is an admitted fact that
the accused are not scrap dealers nor is there anything
to show that they had been engaged by scrap dealers to          G
commit the offence. Thus, there was no motive behind
the commission of the offence so far as the accused are
concerned. [para 23] [308-G-H; 309-A-C]
      Surinder Pal Jain v. Delhi Administration 1993 Crl.L.J.
1871   =1993 SCC (Crl.) 10~6 and Tarseem Kumar vs. Delhi H
    300    SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2010] 13 (ADDL.) S.C.R.


A   Administration 1994 (2) Suppl. SCR 740 =1994 Sup. (3)
    sec 367 - referred to.
      1.7 The conclusion reached by the courts below is
  not correct. On the basis of such scanty evidence, which
  is practically no evidence at all in the eyes of law, the
B courts below could not have passed the order of
  conviction. The orders convicting the accused-appellants
  in both the appeals are not justified and are, therefore,
  set aside. [para 26] [310-D-E]

c                        Case Law Reference:
          2009 (4) SCR 956            referred to     para 12
          AIR 1983 SC 367             referred to     para 14
          1993 Crl.L.J. 1871          referred to     para 15
D
          1994 (2) Suppl. SCR 740     referred to     para 15
          2010 (10) SCR 377           relied on       para 24
          1996 (3) Suppl. SCR 479     relied on       para 25
E       CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal
    No. 705 of 2008.
        From the Judgment & Order dated 14.11.2007 of the High
    Court of Judicature for Rajasthan at Jaipur in D.B. Criminal
F   Appeal No. 935 of 2005.
                               WITH
    Crl. Appeal No. 561 of 2008.
      Sanjay R. Hegde, Ramesh Kr. Mishra, Krutin Joshi,
G Ramesh S. Jadhav, Vikrant Yadav, J.S. Sodhi, Sawaran S.
  Saran for the Appellant.
       Dr. Manish Singhvi, AAG, Devanshu Kumar Devesh, Milind
    Kumar for the Respondent.
H
  VARUN CHAUDHARY v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN                     301


    The Judgment of the Court was delivered by                     A

     ANIL R. DAVE, J. 1. Being aggrieved by the Judgment
delivered in Criminal Appeal No.935 of 2005 and in Criminal
Appeal No. 798 of 2006 by the Rajasthan High Court, Criminal
Appeal No.705/2008 and Criminal Appeal No.561 of 2008 have
                                                                   8
been filed respectively. The appellants in both the appeals have
been convicted under the provisions of Section 302 of the Indian
Penal Code to suffer imprisonment for life and a fine of
Rs.1,000/-, in default 3 months' simple imprisonment. As the
appellants in both the afore-stated appeals were involved in the
same offence, both the appeals were heard together and they        C
are disposed of by this common judgment.

    2. Facts giving rise to the appeals referred to above in a
nutshell are as under:-
                                                                   D
     (a) Bhawani Singh (deceased) was an Income Tax Officer
who was posted at Ajmer and was a member of a search party,
function of which was to conduct raids on certain persons'
premises to find out whether the concerned persons had
evaded payment of income-tax.
                                                                   E
      (b} In the evening of 22nd August, 2000, the deceased had
left his residence for going to Ajmer Club with an intimation to
his son Ajit Singh(P.W.11), that he would return by 10 p.m. As
Bhawani Singh did not return till midnight, Ajit Singh (PW-11)
had enquired from Vasudev (P.W.5), as to why the deceased          F
had not returned. Vasudev (P.W.5), had thereupon informed Ajit
Singh (P.W.11), that he had given lift to the deceased from
Ajmer Club and had dropped him near Ricoh circle, which was
near his residence. In the circumstances, Ajit Singh (P.W.11)
had gone to make inquiry near the residence of Vasudev (P.W.       G
5), but in the meantime it was informed that body of the
deceased was lying near Ricoh circle which was not quite far
from the residence of the deceased. Incised wound on left side
of chin and stab wounds were found on his body and it was
found that the deceased died as somebody had attacked him.         H
    302    SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2010] 13 (ADDL.) S.C.R.


A   In the circumstances, First Information Report (Ext.P.15) was
    lodged around 2 a.m. and thereafter necessary investigation
    was made by the Investigation Officer (P.W. 26 ). In the course
    of investigation, Varun Chaudhary- Accused No.1, Sudhir @
    Bunty -Accused no.2 and Himmat Singh @ Bobby -accused
B   no.3 were arrested.

         3. It was the case of the prosecution that the afore-stated
    accused had committed the offence of murder by inflicting
    serious injuries upon the deceased. It was a case of
    circumstantial evidence as nobody had seen the commission
C   of the offence. It was, however, recorded in the evidence that
    immediately after arrest of accused no.1 on 1st September,
    2000, and arrest of accused no.2, a knife had been recovered
    from accused no.1 whereas blood-stained clothes of Himmat
    Singh, accused no.3 had been recovered.
D
         4. The trial court had considered the facts and on the basis
    of evidence recorded, accused no.1 was found to be guilty of
    having committed an offence under Section 302 of the IPC and
    was sentenced to undergo life imprisonme~t ~n.d pay a fifl'e of
E   Rs. 1,000/-, in default three months simple ir!ipriJonment
    whereas accused Nos. 2 and 3 were acquitted. '

         5. The Trial Court had considered the fact that a knife had
    been recovered from accused no.1 and in view of the fact that
    incised wounds were found on the body of the deceased, it
F   came to the conclusion that accused No.1 was guilty of the
    offence under the provisions of Section 302 of the IPC. The trial
    court considered the evidence of Pawan Kumar, Home Guard
    (P.W.3), who was on duty near the Ricoh Circle. He had seen
    three persons riding on a motor cycle around midnight.
G   However, he could not identify the persons who were on the
    motor cycle.

        6. Pooran Singh (P.W.6) , a police constable, had also
    seen around same time three persons going on a motor cycle
H   and as there were three persons on a motor cycle, he had given
  VARUN CHAUDHARY v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN                      303
             [ANIL R. DAVE, J.]
an indication to stop them by blowing his whistle but the           A
motorcyclist did not stop and he could not record the full number
of the motor cycle but he noticed that one of the digits was '9'
in the number of the motor cycle.

    7. Post Mortem of the body of the deceased revealed that
                                                                    8
the following injuries had been inflicted on the deceased:

            (i)    Incised wound of 3 x 0.5 cm ml!scle deep on
                   left side of chin.

            (ii)   Stab wound 2.5 x 0.5 cm on the lower part        c
                   of the chest on the left side.

     8. The said injuries were caused with a sharp edged
weapon and in the opinion of the doctor, the said injuries were
sufficient to cause death of the deceased. (Post Mortem Report
- Ext. 21).
                                                                    0

     9. The trial court was of the view that the chain of
circumstances had been completed and on the said basis, the
order of conviction was passed.
                                                                   E
      10. Being aggrieved by the order of conviction, an appeal
 had been filed by accused No.1, whereas against the order of
acquittal, so far as accused Nos. 2 and 3 are concerned, state
 had filed an appeal in the High Court. The appeals had been
heard together and ultimately, after considering the submissions F
made on behalf of the learned advocates and upon perusal of
the evidence, the High Court confirmed the order of conviction
of accused No.1. So far as accused Nos. 2 and 3 are
concerned, the High Court came to the conclusion that they were
also guilty of the offence for which they were charged and,
therefore, the appeal filed by the State had been allowed and G
the findings of acquittal rendered by the Trial Court in favour of
accused Nos. 2 and 3 had been set aside and the said
accused were also convicted under the provisions of Section
302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code to suffer
imprisonment for life and a fine of Rs. 1,000/-, in default to H
    304 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2010] 13 (ADDL.) S.C.R.


A   suffer simple imprisonment for three months.

        Being aggrieved by the aforesaid order passed by the
    High Court, the aforesaid two appeals have been filed by
    accused Nos.1 and 2.
B         11. Criminal Appeal No. 705 of 2008, which pertains to the
    conviction of A-1 - Varun Chaudhary, was argued by Mr. U.U.
    Lalit, learned senior counsel and Crimina'I Appeal No.561 of
    2008 was argued by learned counsel Mr. Sanjay R. Hegde. The
    learned counsel vehemently submitted that the order of
C   conviction is bad in law for the reason that there was no eye-
    witness and there was no complete chain of events, which
    would lead to the only conclusion that the accused were guilty
    of the offence referred to hereinabove and there was no
    possibility of their being innocent. In a case of circumstantial
D   evidence, it must be established beyond doubt that except the
    accused, nobody else could have committed the offence and
    the chain of events must be complete in such a manner that
    one can· come to the conclusion that the accused was the only
    person who could have committed the offence and none else.
E   To substantiate their case, they submitted that there was no eye
    witness and only evidence which a police constable (P.W.6)
    had given was that he had seen three persons going on a motor
    cycle. Though he could not see the full number of the motor
    cycle, he could notice no.'9' as one of the digits in the number
F   of the motor cycle. The said witness specifically stated that he
    could not recognize any of the accused. There was no
    identification parade so as to identify as to whether the three
    accused had been noticed by the Home Guard (P.W.3) and the
    Police Constable (P.W.6}, who had seen three persons on the
G   motor cycle.

          12. Thereafter, they submitted that recovery of knife and
    blood stained clothes could not have been··relied upon by.the
    trial court or by the High Court. The said recovery had not been
    duly proved for the reason that witness Madanlal (PW.25), who
H   had made an effort to prove the recovery had admitted in his
    VARUN CHAUDHARY v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN                     305
               [ANIL R. DAVE, J.]
 cross examination that he had remained outside the premises         A
 from which the knife and the blood stained clothes (Ext. P-7)
 had been recovered. It was specifically stated by the P.W.25
 that when A-1 - Varun Chaudhary had taken the police party
 and the witnesses to show the place where the knife had been
 hidden, he was asked to remain outside the premises and the         B
police and accused no.1 had gone in the premises and returned
with a knife and blood stained clothes. Another witness,
Bhanwar Singh, PW.9, who was supposed to prove recovery
of the motor cycle had admitted that recovery Panchnama was
signed by him in the police station. In view of the said fact, the   c
trial court should not have relied upon the said witnesses. They
further submitted that the knife which was alleged to have been
recovered was never shown to the accused or was nev'er
produced in the court . .According to them, as law laid down by
this Court in Abdulwahab Abdulmajid Baloch vs. State of
                                                                     0
Gujarat, 2009 (11) sec 625, the weapon recovered ought to
have been produced before the court and should have'been
shown to the accused but admittedly, neither the weapon was
produced before the Court nor it was shown to the accused at
                  .                                      '
any point of time.
                                                                     E
     13. So far as the evidence, which pertains to the tyre marks
of the motor cycle, which was alleged to have been used in the
offence is concerned, they submitted th§t there was no
evidence that the marks of the tyre had been compared with
the marks which were found at the place of the offence. In fact      F
there was nothing to show that tyre marks at the place of the
offence and tyre marks found by FSL Report were same.

    14. They further submitted that even at the time when the
accused were questioned by the court under the provisions of         G
Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the weapon
and the blood stained clothes had not been shown to the
accused. They relied upon the judgment delivered by this Court
in Mohd. Abdul Hafeez v. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1983
SC 367, to substantiate their case that the articles recovered
                                                                     H




          ...,---,-,- - - - - -
        ~~-                   ..    ---
    306    SUPREME COURT REPORTS (2010] 13 (ADDL.) S.C.R.


A   must be shown to the accused during the trial or at the time
    when his statement under Section 313 of Cr.P.C. is recorded.

       15. They further submitted that no motive was attributed
  against the accused. They fairly admitted that though motive is
  not important in each and every case, according to the learned
8
  counsel, even if one relies upon the statement made by the son
  of the deceased, the deceased might have some enmity with
  persons· dealing in scrap as the deceased had raided
  premises of some scrap dealers and due to the said fact, some
  threats had also been received by the deceased from persons
C dealing in scrap. The accused were neither dealers in scrap
  nor there was any evidence that at the behest of the scrap
  dealers, the accused had murdered the deceased. According
  to the learned counsel, in absence of any motive, in a case
  which is based only on circumstantial evidence, it would not be
D just and proper lo convict the accused, especially when there
  was no material to come to a conclusion that the accused had
  committed the offence. So as to substantiate the above
  submis~ion, they relied on the Judgments delivered by this Court
  in Surinder Pal Jain v. Delhi Administration 1993 Crl.L.J. 1871
E = 1993 SCC (Crl.) 1096 and Tarseem Kumar vs. Delhi
  Administration 1994 Sup.(3) SCC 367, respectively.

         16. For the aforestated reasons, they submitted that the
    order convicting the accused could not have been passed and,
F   therefore, the appeals should be allowed and the accused
    should be acquitted.

       17. On the other hand, the learned public prosecutor made
  an effort to support the judgments delivered by the High Court
  whereby the accused have been convicted. He submitted that
G the evidence recorded by the trial court was properly
  appreciated by the High Court and looking to the reasons given
  by the High Court, interference with the Order of the High Court
  was not called for.

H         18. We have heard the learned counsel and have
  VARUN CHAUDHARY v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN                   307
             [ANIL R. DAVE, J.]
considered the submissions referred to hereinabove and          A
relevant record.

      19. Upon going through the judgments relied upon by the
counsel appearing for the appellants and looking to the
evidence adduced before the trial court, we are in agreement
                                                                 8
with the submissions made by the learned counsel appearing
for the appellants.
           '·   ..
     20. Home Guard, Pawan Kumar (PW-3), had seen three
persons on a motor cycle. However, he stated that he could not
identify the persons on the motor cycle. Similarly, police C
constable Pooran Singh (PW- 6) had stated that around 12
midnight on 22nd August, 2000, he had seen two persons
going on motor cycle and one of them was the deceased. After
sometime he had seen another motor cycle which was Suzuki,
but he could not read complete number of the motor cycle, but D
he could read one of the digits, namely No. '9'. He whistled so
as to stop the said motor cyclist but the motor cyclist did not
stop. Thereafter, he had seen another motor cycle, being Hero
Honda which had hit a dog near Santoshi Mata Temple. It is
pertinent to note that the afore-stated two witnesses did not say E
that they had seen any of the accused. Possibly even they did
not see faces of the three persons, who were cin the motor
cycle. Possibly, in these set of circumstances, having
identification parade would be futile and, therefore, there was
no test identification parade. Thus, nobody had seen any of the F
accused. So far as identification of the. motor cycle is
concerned, PW-6 merely stated that he saw one digit of
registration number of the motor cycle, which was '9'. In our
opinion, on the basis of one digit of the registered number, it
would be dangerous to believe that the motor cycle recovered,
which also had digit '9' in its number, was used in the offence. G
In our opinion, on such a scanty evidence it cannot be said that
the accused had been identified or the motor cycle which had
been recovered was the one which was used by the accused
at the time of the offence.
                                                                 H
    308 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2010] 13 (ADDL.) S.C.R.


A        21. In our opinion, so called recovery of knife and blood
    stained clothes would not help the prosecution. Recovery of the
    motor cycle can not be said to be proved because Bhanwar
    Singh, PW-9 admitted the fact that he had signed the recovery
    panchnama in the police station whereas another witness,
s   Madan Lal, P .W.25 could not establish recovery of the knife as
    he was not present at the time and place from which the knife
    had been recovered. Moreover, the knife was never produced
    before the court and was never shown to the accused and,
    therefore, in our opinion, the said evid~nce could not have been
c   relied upon by the courts below for passing the order of
    conviction.

          22. It is pertinent to note that there is no evidence or even
    there is no reference to the fact that any one from Forensic
    Science Laboratory or from the police personnel had lifted
D   marks of the motor cycle tyre from the place of the offence so
    that the same can be compared with the tyre marks of the motor
    cycle alle~ed to have been used in the offence. Unless tyre
    marks are lifted from the place of the offence and upon
    comparison with the tyre marks of the motor cycle recovered
E   are found to'be the same, it cannot be said that the motor cycle
    recovered vJ~s used in the offence. So as to establish the
    presence of tb~ motor cycle at the place of the offence, the
    prosecution must show that the tyre. marks which were found
    at the place of the offence were that of the motor cycle used
F   by the accused. It is also pertinent to note that marks of the
    motor cycle tyre ~hich were received by the FSL were not in a
    sealed condition. 'Aforestated facts clearly denote that the
    marks of the motor rYCle tyre could not have been relied upon
    either by the Trial Court or by the High Court for establishing
G   that the motor cycle '-tiaving particular tyre marks was used in
    the alleged offence. '

         23. It is also pertinent to note that the prosecution could
    not establish the purpose for which the deceased was murdered
    by the accused. Of course, it is not necessary that in every case
H
  VARUN CHAUDHARY v. STATE OF RAJASTHAN                  309
             [ANiL R. DAVE, J.]
motive of the accused should be proved. However, inthe instant A
case, where -there is -no,eye witness or where there is no
scientific evidence to connectthe accused with the offence, in
our opinion, the prosecution ought to have established that
there was some motive behind commission of the offence of
murder of the deceased. It was the case of the prosecution that B
the deceased, an Income Tax Officer had raided the premises
belonging ·to some scrap dealers and, therefore, he had
received •some threats .from such scrap dealers. It· is an.
admitted fact that the accused are not scrap dealers or there
is nothing to show that the accused had been engaged by scrap C
dealers to :commit the offence. Thus, there was no motive
behind the commission of the offence so far as the accused
are concerned.

      24. It is a settled legal position that in case of
circumstantial evidence, there . must· be a complete chain of D ·
evidencewhich would lead to a conclusion that the accu~ed was
the only person; who could. have committed the offence and
none else. In the instant case, there is nothing to show that the
accused had committed the offence and on ·the b~sis of the
aforestated material, in our opinion, it would be dangerous to E
convict the accused: In the case of G.· Parashwanath vs.· State
of Kamataka; (2010)8 SCC 593, para,24, it has been stated
that "in deciding the sufficiency of the circumstantial evidence
for the purpose of conviction, the court has to consider the total
cumulative effect of all the proved facts, each one of which F
reinforces the conclusion of guilt and if the combined effect of
all these facts taken together is conclusive in establishing the
guilt of the accused, the conviction would be justified even
though it may be that one or more of these facts by itself or
themselves is/are not decisive. The facts established should be G
consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused
and should exclude every hypothesis except the one sought to
be proved ............. There must be a chain of evidence so
complete as not to_ leave any reasonable ground for the
conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and H
    310    SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2010] 13 (ADDL.) S.C.R.


A   must show that in all human probability the act must have been
    done by the accused, where various links in chain are in
    themselves complete, then the false plea or false defence may
    be called into aid only to lend assurance to the court".

         25. In another case of C. Chenga Reddy v. State of A.P.,
8
    reported in (1996) 10 SCC 193, this Court has held that "In a
    case based on circumstantial evidence, the settled law is that
    the circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is drawn
    should be fully proved and such circumstances must be
    conclusive in nature. Moreover, all the circumstances should be
C   complete and there should be no gap left in the chain bf
    evidence. Further the proved circumstances must be consistent
    only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused and totally
    inconsistent with his innocence."

D         26. Due to the above stated facts, in our opinion, the
    conclusion reached by the courts below is not correct. On the
    basis of such scanty evidence, which is practically no evidence
    at all in the eyes of law, the courts below could not have passed
    the order of conviction. For the reasons stated hereinabove, we
E   are of the view that the orders convicting the accused-
    appellants in both the appeals are not justified and, therefore,
    the appeals are allowed. The impugned orders are quashed
    and set aside. The accused-appellants shall be released
    immediately, if not required in any other offence.

    R.P.                                          Appeals allowed.