P&H High Court Acquits Juvenile Of Murder And Abduction, Rejecting ‘Last-Seen’ Account After Father And Uncle Went Home Without Calling Police

The prosecution alleged that Kuldeep, a juvenile, and co-accused Parveen abducted and murdered Jaimal, whose body was later found in a car.

The case rested on circumstantial evidence, including alleged last-seen evidence, recoveries of a rope and cloth, and a claimed motive arising from an earlier dispute.

The Juvenile Justice Board convicted Kuldeep under Sections 302, 364 and 34 IPC and ordered his placement in a special home; the Additional Sessions Judge upheld the decision.

Kuldeep challenged those findings in revision.

Sections 302, 364 and 34 IPC governed the alleged murder, kidnapping or abduction in order to murder, and joint liability; Section 362 IPC defines abduction as compelling a person by force, or inducing them by deceitful means, to go from a place.

Under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, only information distinctly related to a fact discovered is admissible; a pointing-out memo revealing no new fact is inadmissible.

Under Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, a circumstantial-evidence conviction requires fully established circumstances that are conclusive, consistent only with guilt, and form a complete chain excluding reasonable hypotheses of innocence.

The Court also relied on Nandu Singh v. State of M.P. and Anwar Ali v. State of H.P. for the principle that absence of motive may weigh in an accused’s favour in a circumstantial case; Rathinam v. State of T.N. on the relevance of conduct contrary to normal human behaviour; and Sekaran v. State of T.N. on assessing unexplained FIR delay in the context of all attending circumstances.

The Court found the alleged motive unproved: the Elephant Nikasi account was not consistently supported, while the alternative love-affair motive appeared in a disclosure statement but was not supported by evidence.

The accounts of the complainant and his brother concerning the alleged search and discovery were materially inconsistent; their failure to promptly inform the police after allegedly finding the deceased also undermined the last-seen narrative.

The FIR was delayed, and evidence indicated that police activity had begun before its registration.

The alleged recoveries were doubtful: the rope and cloth were commonplace, were not produced in court, and were recovered from a public place; the pointing-out memo disclosed no new fact.

The car evidence did not reliably connect either accused to the vehicle, and the evidence did not establish that Jaimal had been abducted by force or deceit.

Taken together, the circumstances did not form the complete chain required by Sharad Birdhichand Sarda.

It set aside the Juvenile Justice Board’s judgment and the appellate judgment, acquitted Kuldeep of all charges, and ordered that any bail bonds be released; pending applications were disposed of.