A stale last-seen circumstance cannot sustain conviction without a complete chain excluding reasonable doubt.

The appellant was convicted under Section 302 IPC and sentenced to life imprisonment and a fine for the death of Ajay Pal Singh, whose father alleged that Ajay Pal had gone out with the appellant on 13 February 2013.

The deceased’s body was found in an orchard on 15 February 2013, after the appellant allegedly led the father to it.

The prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence, including the deceased being last seen with the appellant and testimony that the appellant had earlier said Ajay Pal had died after falling while drunk.

No witness saw the killing.

The trial court convicted the appellant; he appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and the reliability of the circumstantial case.

Section 300 IPC defines when culpable homicide amounts to murder, requiring proof of the relevant act and one of the specified forms of intention or knowledge.

In a circumstantial-evidence case, the circumstances must be fully established, consistent only with guilt, conclusive, exclude other reasonable hypotheses, and form a complete chain pointing to the accused’s guilt; the Court relied on Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, 1984 AIR 1622.

The last-seen circumstance is a link in the chain and cannot, by itself, be the sole basis for conviction.

Where the evidence permits more than one reasonable inference, the accused is entitled to the benefit of doubt.

The Court found that the deceased was last seen with the appellant on the evening of 13 February, while the body was recovered on 15 February; the interval was too long to exclude the possibility of another person’s involvement.

The medical evidence did not conclusively establish the cause of death, and the doctor accepted that the injuries could have resulted from a fall on a hard surface.

The Court also noted the absence of a proved motive, the delay in reporting the matter, the lack of proximity between the last-seen evidence and recovery, and the failure to link the human blood on the appellant’s clothes to either the appellant or the deceased.

Taken together, the circumstances did not form a complete chain pointing only to the appellant’s guilt.

It allowed the appeal, set aside the conviction and sentence under Section 302 IPC, and acquitted the appellant.

As he was in custody, the Court directed his release forthwith unless required in another case.

The trial court record was ordered to be returned for compliance.