Full Judgment Text
Reportable
2026 INSC 162
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
Criminal Appeal No.689 of 2026
[@Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No.5624 of 2024]
Rohit Jangde
...Appellant
Versus
The State of Chhattisgarh
...Respondent
J U D G M E N T
K. Vinod Chandran, J.
Leave granted.
2. A botched investigation leaves many questions
unanswered and in the present case, the murder of a six-
year-old girl went unpunished and her stepfather was
incarcerated on mere conjectures. The impugned judgment
of the High Court affirmed the conviction and sentence of
the accused, the stepfather, on three circumstances. One,
the last seen together theory propounded through a
neighbour. Then, the ashes and the bony remnants from the
charred remains of the child, having been recovered on the
Signature Not Verified
Digitally signed by
babita pandey
Date: 2026.02.17
17:06:16 IST
Reason:
information supplied by the accused. And last, the skull and
teeth recovered from a canal having tallied with the sample
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DNA profile of the biological parents of the girl child,
establishing death unequivocally. The High Court also
emphasized the aspect of no explanation having been
offered by the accused regarding his knowledge of the
location from which the bony remnants of the deceased
were recovered; an incriminating circumstance under
Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. Whether these
factors would form a complete chain of circumstances
leading only to the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused
without leaving room for any other hypothesis, is the
question arising herein.
3. We have heard Dr. Rajesh Pandey, learned Senior
Counsel appearing for the accused and Ms. Ankita Sharma,
Advocate-on-Record, appearing for the State. We cannot
but appreciate the Government Advocate for undertaking
the exercise of preparing, for our perusal, a paper-book
containing the entire records, both the vernacular and the
translation. The hearing on the earlier occasion also raised
serious questions as to the custody of the accused, prior to
the arrest in the present crime, which persuaded us to pass
an order on 14.11.2025, directing the State to produce proof,
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if any, of the accused having been taken into custody and
imprisoned between 05.10.2025 to 10.10.2025. An
additional affidavit dated 08.12.2025, filed by the State in
compliance of our order, producing an arrest/Court
surrender memo adds to the confusion, making the truth
regarding the crime, further elusive.
4. On facts suffice it to notice that the accused was living
with his two wives and three children. One of the children
was born to the accused from his first wife and the two
children of his second wife (PW7) were from her previous
marriage with PW17. On 05.10.2018, a quarrel broke out
between the accused and PW7, in which PW7 was
physically assaulted. This prompted her to leave her marital
home and proceed to the home of her parents. PW7 was
admitted to a hospital and on her request, her mother PW2
went to her daughter’s marital home to pick up the
grandchildren. She was, however, informed by the first wife
of the accused that the accused had taken the younger child.
There was no attempt to find out the missing child and a
missing complaint was registered on 11.10.2018 at 13.20 hrs
at Sahaspur Lohara Police Station in District Kabirdhan.
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Later, allegedly on the confession statement of the accused
under Section 27 of the Evidence Act, on 13.10.2018, the
accused is said to have led the police party to a field from
where some burnt bones and ashes were recovered and
from a nearby canal a skull and some bones, covered in a
green saree were recovered.
5. PW1, the doctor before whom the bone remnants were
produced, suggested a chemical examination of the
remains, which was carried out under the supervision of
PW18, the Senior Scientific Officer. The FSL report marked
as Annexure P21A indicated that the DNA profile of the
sample taken from PW7 and PW17, the biological parents of
the deceased child, matched with the DNA profiles of the
vertebrae and teeth recovered from the canal; the skull
having not matched, on analysis. PW8, a neighbor of the
accused was also examined to show that the accused had
taken the child from the house on a motor bike allegedly
establishing the last seen together theory. Thus, the
circumstances, of the recovery made, the last seen together
theory projected and the matching of the DNA profiles, led
to the conviction of the accused.
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6. Learned Senior Counsel for the accused on the
previous hearing date specifically argued that on
05.10.2018, alleging an assault on PW7 an FIR was
registered which led to the arrest of the accused on
05.10.2018 itself, after which he was released from judicial
custody only on 08.10.2018. We have looked at the
additional affidavit filed, which indicates that the accused
was arrested on 06.10.2018 and remanded to judicial
custody by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate; the accused
having been released from the District Jail, Kabirdham on
08.10.2018 as per the bail order of the Sub-Divisional
Magistrate. Having gone through Annexure 2, the
Arrest/Court Surrender Memo produced along with the
affidavit, we have serious doubts on when the arrest
occurred. There is clear interpolation in the date and though
at column No. 8, of the FIR, the arrest is shown to have been
carried out on 06.10.2018 at 13.40 hrs, in Column No.2 the
date and time have been changed from 05.10.2018 and
12.40 to 06 or 08.10.2018 and 13.40. The interpolation on the
date is very clear from the documents produced which
raises a reasonable doubt as to the arrest of the accused,
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which could have been at 12.40 hrs on 05.10.2018, seriously
hampering the last seen theory as projected by the
prosecution. Be that as it may, we will first examine the
evidence led at the trial keeping in mind the principle that
every faulty investigation will not inure to the benefit of the
accused unless serious prejudice is caused thereby and the
evidence led is not sufficient to arrive at a finding of guilt,
unequivocally.
7. PW2, mother-in-law of the accused spoke about the
quarrel between her daughter and the accused and her
daughter’s admission to the hospital for treatment. She also
deposed that she had gone to the house of the accused
along with the police, to fetch the grandchildren, when the
first wife of the accused informed her that the accused had
taken away the second child. Pertinently we have to
observe that in chief-examination there is no date
mentioned and the whereabouts of the first child of her
daughter, who also was staying along with the accused, has
not at all been disclosed. PW10, the husband of PW2, who
accompanied her to the house of the accused fully
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corroborated the version of PW2 but again without any date
mentioned and also the whereabouts of the first child.
8. In any event, even going by the version of the State,
the accused was arrested on 06.10.2018 and released only
on 08.10.2018. This has been fully corroborated by PW15,
the I.O who spoke of the arrest of the accused on 06.10.2018,
his remand and later release on 08.10.2018. The last seen
theory as projected through PW8 indicates that the child
was taken away by the accused, in which circumstance, the
crime ought to have occurred on 05.10.2018 or before the
arrest of the accused on 06.10.2018. Despite the child
having not been found, PW2, PW7 and PW10 did not
register any case of missing, and an FIR was first registered
on 11.10.2018, when PW7 along with the accused came to
the Police Station and registered an FIR regarding the
missing child. This assumes relevance especially since the
incident of assault was reported to the police, who
accompanied PW2 to the house of the accused on the same
day, when they were told that the child went with the
accused.
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9. The accused having been arrested, even accepting
the version of the Police, on 06.10.2018, it is strange that no
enquiries were made about the missing child. Further the
missing complaint is said to have been registered much
later on 11.10.2018. The First Information Statement (FIS) by
the Sub-Inspector of Sahaspur Lohara Police Station is on
information supplied by PW2 who was accompanied by her
husband. The oral report spoken of in the FIS was that the
six-year-old child went missing at 09.00 P.M. on 06.10.2018,
obviously after the accused was arrested. These aspects as
borne out from the records puts to peril the prosecution
story of the last seen together theory as projected through
PW8. PW8 a neighbor of the accused also deposed before
Court that she volunteered this information to the Police,
seven days after 05.10.2018; when already the said aspect
was known to the mother and grandparents of the deceased
child as also the Police, by virtue of the information supplied
by the first wife of the accused on 05.10.2018 itself. The last
seen together theory hence fails miserably.
10. Now we come to the recovery allegedly made under
Section 27, which is also fraught with inconsistencies as we
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would presently indicate. The memorandum under Section
27 of the Evidence Act produced as Ex. P4 indicates the
same having been drawn up on 13.10.2018 at 10.30 A.M. The
only admissible portion in the said memorandum is : ‘I will
show you the place... where her bones and ashes are and the
place where her skull and bones were..’(sic) . The police were
led by the accused first to a field from where bones with
ashes were recovered at 10.55 A.M evidenced by Property
Seizure Memo Ex.P5. The canal was searched by three
fishermen PW 3 to PW 5 who recovered the skull with 8
numbers of tooth of the upper jaw and a piece of bone
wrapped in a green color saree, all of which showed
evidence of burning as indicated in Ex.P3 Property Seizure
Memo at 13.00 on 13.10.2018. Though the recoveries as per
Exts. P3 & P5 Memos were made, in accordance with the
confession statement of the accused, Ext. P4 at 10.30 on
13.10.2018, the Arrest/Court Surrender Memo produced at
Ex.P27, indicates the arrest of the accused having been
made on 13.10.2018 at 22.00 hrs. Section 27 of the Evidence
Act clearly speaks of information received from a person
accused of any offence while in the custody of the police
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leading to a discovery of a fact being enabled of proof in the
trial. The accused at the time of the statement was not in the
custody of the police and hence it is removed from the ambit
of Section 27.
11. Section 27, as has been held in Jaffar Hussain
1
Dastagir v. State of Maharashtra , is in effect a proviso to
Section 26 which makes admissible so much of the statement
of the accused deposed to by him, leading to the discovery
of the fact deposed and connected with the crime,
irrespective of the question whether it is confessional or
otherwise. The essential ingredient of the provision is that
the information given by the accused must lead to the
discovery of a fact which is the direct outcome of such
information. Secondly only such portion of the information
given as is distinctly connected with the said recovery is
admissible against the accused. Thirdly, the discovery of
the fact must relate to the commission of the offence alleged.
12. A similar situation, as in this case arose before the
2
Calcutta High Court in Durlav Namasudra v. Emperor
wherein the information which led to the discovery of the
1
(1969) 2 SCC 872
2
1931 SCC Online Cal 146
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dead body had been given by the accused before they were
taken into custody. It was held that Section 27 controls
Section 24 to 26 and the first thing that is to be ascertained
before its application is whether the information came from
a person who was in the custody of the police. It was held
that if information came from a person who was not in the
custody of the police, then it cannot be brought under
Section 27. The Chief Justice passed a concurring judgment
but expressed anguish insofar as Section 27 permitted
reliance on a statement made to the police which leads to
the discovery of a fact, only when the person who gave the
information is in custody, which was also observed to be
absurd in terms. However, it was also held that till the
legislature takes the matter in hand and redrafts the
provision, the paradox expressed would continue to be law.
13. The position is somewhat clarified in Dharam Deo
3
Yadav v. State of Uttar Pradesh , which dealt with the
murder of a foreign national by a tourist guide. The I.O
having received information that the guide was arriving by
a train rushed to the railway station and intercepted him in
3
(2014) 5 SCC 509
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the platform. On interrogation it was confessed by the
accused that he had murdered the victim and the dead body
was buried in his house. The I.O thus was led to the house of
the accused from where the accused dug up the skeleton
which later was proved to be of the victim. It was held that
the expression ‘custody’ appearing in Section 27 does not
mean formal custody and includes any kind of surveillance,
restriction or restraint by the police. It was held, relying on
4
State of A.P. v. Gangula Satya Murthy that even if there is
no formal arrest made, if a person is within the ken of
surveillance of the police, during which his movements are
restricted, then it can be regarded as custodial surveillance.
It was also held by this Court that even if the recovery of the
skeleton was not in terms of Section 27, on the premise that
the accused was not in the custody of the police while the
statement was made, it would be admissible as ‘conduct
under Section 8 of the Act’ . In that case there was absolutely
no explanation by the accused for the skeleton found buried
in his own house.
4
(1997) 1 SCC 272
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14. In the present case, the FIR was registered on
11.10.2018 at 13.20 hours and the so-called Section 27
statement was recorded at 10.30 on 13.10.2018, after which
the recoveries were made and the arrest carried out later in
th
the night of the 13 . There is nothing indicated to show that
the accused, who had accompanied his wife to register the
missing complaint was even suspected of being responsible
for the missing of the child. In any event, this does not pose
any difficulty insofar as the deposition of the I.O, PW 15; that
he was led to the field and the canal from where the
recovery was made, subsequent to which the person was
arrested, though not admissible under Section 27, all the
same can be brought under Section 8 of the Evidence Act.
15. Apposite also would be a reference to Ramkishan
5
Mithanlal Sharma v. State of Bombay . The charge therein
was of commission of dacoity using deadly weapons. The
I.O deposed before Court that on information supplied by
the first accused, he reached the location where he asked
one Bali Ram to dig out a tin box from the mud floor of a
house pointed out by the first accused leading to recovery
5
(1954) 2 SCC 516
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of three revolvers and live cartridges. Since the I.O did not
depose on the specific information passed on by the first
accused, it was held that the operation of Section 27 though
not attracted, prima facie there was nothing to prevent that
evidence being admitted against the first accused. We
extract herewith paragraph 33 of the cited decision:
“33. The evidence of the police officer would no
doubt go to show that the accused knew of the
existence of the fact discovered in consequence of
information given by him. But that would not
necessarily show his direct connection with the
offence. It would merely be a link in the chain of
evidence which taken along with other pieces of
evidence might go to establish his connection
therewith. This circumstance would therefore be
quite innocuous, and evidence could certainly be
given of that circumstance without attracting the
operation of Section 27.”
[underlining by us for emphasis]
Hence, we are persuaded to accept the recovery of the
bone remnants having been made at the instance of the
accused, though at the time of his statement, he was not in
police custody, which could only be a link under Section 8
of the Evidence Act, in the chain of circumstances; but his
connection with the crime still has to be proved otherwise.
16. The next circumstance projected by the prosecution is
the matching of the DNA profiles of the bone remnants with
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the DNA profiles of the biological parents of the deceased
child. We have to specifically notice that the DNA profiles
matched only with the piece of vertebrae and the teeth
recovered from the canal, while the skull and those
recovered from the field, where the body is said to have
been burnt, did not match with the samples taken from the
parents. In this context, we also have to notice that the bones
recovered were wrapped in a green saree of PW7, which
was not attempted to be identified as belonging to her, by
confronting the same to the witness, while she was in the
box.
17. The learned Senior Counsel for the accused also
argued that the matching of the DNA samples was not put to
the accused in the Section 313 questioning. PW18 was the
Scientific Officer who spoke of the samples having matched
with the DNA profiles of the bone and teeth remnants taken
from the canal. Question No. 157 specifically was with
respect to the blood samples of the mother and father of the
deceased having been marked as C1 and C2. Question No.
158 spoke of Ex.A (specifically A-02) and Ex.B DNA profiles
and that the alleles were found matching with the DNA
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profile of Ex.C. Question No. 159 specifically informed the
accused of the vertebrae having been marked as A2 and
subjected to DNA testing. We are of the opinion that
question numbers 157 to 159 informed the accused about
the matching of the DNA profiles which was responded to
by a bland denial.
18. As of now, we are faced with only two circumstances,
the knowledge of the accused regarding the place from
which the bone remnants of the child were recovered and
the matching of some of it with the DNA profiles of the
biological parents of the child. What has been established
beyond doubt is only the death of the child whose vertebrae
and teeth, recovered from a canal, matched with the DNA
profiles obtained from the sample taken from the biological
parents. The knowledge of the accused, which led to the
detection of the bone remnants though not acceptable
under Section 27 would all the same be acceptable
evidence under Section 8, which by itself is a weak piece of
evidence. The evidence under Section 8 can only offer
corroboration and cannot by itself result in a conviction. The
suspicion regarding the earlier arrest and incarceration of
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the accused also would pose serious difficulty in finding a
hypothesis of guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. The long
gap when there was no complaint made about the missing
child and the factum of none having questioned the accused,
despite the family and police having been told that she went
with the accused tilts the scales in favour of the accused;
especially since he was released on 08.10.2018, two days
before the FIR was lodged. Pertinent also is that since the
corpus delicti was not recovered, there is no time of death
specified. We are hence unable to uphold the conviction of
the accused, and he has to be necessarily given the benefit
of doubt.
19. The Appeal is allowed. The order of the Trial Court
convicting the accused and that of the High Court affirming
the same are set aside. The accused shall be released
forthwith, if not wanted in any other case.
20. Before we leave the matter, we cannot but record our
appreciation for the meticulous preparation of the learned
Government Advocate who, with astute vigor addressed
arguments despite the major pitfalls in investigation. We
cannot but observe that if the investigation had been half as
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good as the preparation of the State Counsel, the shroud of
mystery over the poor child’s disappearance and death,
could have been unravelled. We also appreciate the efforts
put in by the learned Senior Counsel for the appellant, in
probing the State to effectively bring forth the inept
handling of the investigation.
21. Pending applications, if any, shall stand disposed of.
……...…….……………………. J.
(SANJAY KUMAR)
...………….……………………. J.
(K. VINOD CHANDRAN)
NEW DELHI;
FEBRUARY 17, 2026.
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