Recovery of weapon alone insufficient to sustain murder conviction in the absence of complete circumstantial chain.

The prosecution alleged that Accused No. 1 (Bharathkumar) and Accused No. 7 (Sukanya, wife of the deceased Ganesh) were in an illicit relationship and conspired to kill Ganesh

Accused No. 1 allegedly paid "supari" (contract killing fee) of Rs. 6,00,000 to Accused No. 6, who engaged Accused Nos. 2-5 to execute the murder

On April 5, 2015, Ganesh was allegedly lured to a railway track where Accused Nos. 2 and 3 slit his throat and stabbed him

The Trial Court convicted Accused Nos. 1, 6, and 7 under Section 120B IPC (Conspiracy) and Accused Nos. 2 and 3 under Section 302 r/w 34 IPC (Murder), while acquitting Accused Nos. 4 and 5

The appellants challenged this conviction before the High Court of Karnataka.

Whether the Trial Court erred in convicting Accused Nos. 1, 6, and 7 for the offence of criminal conspiracy under Section 120B of the IPC?

Whether the Trial Court erred in convicting Accused Nos. 2 and 3 for the offence of murder under Section 302 of the IPC based on circumstantial evidence?

The court applied Section 120B (Criminal Conspiracy) and Section 302 (Murder) of the Indian Penal Code

For cases resting on circumstantial evidence, the Court strictly applied the "Five Golden Principles" (Panchsheel) established in *Sharad Birdichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra* [(1984) 4 SCC 116], requiring a complete chain of evidence that excludes any hypothesis of innocence

It further relied on *Subramanya v. State of Karnataka* [(2023) 11 SCC 255] regarding the legal distinction between "may be" and "must be" guilty

Raja Naykar v. State of Chhattisgarh [(2024) 3 SCC 481], which holds that mere recovery of a blood-stained weapon matching the victim's blood group is insufficient for a murder conviction without a complete chain of circumstances

Regarding conspiracy, the Court found that the prosecution failed to provide evidence of meetings, communications, or "supari" payments between the accused

The Call Detail Records (CDR) were unreliable as the SIM card stood in a third party's name (Karthik) who was never examined

The voluntary statements of Accused Nos. 1 and 7 were deemed inadmissible as no discovery of fact resulted from them under Section 27 of the Evidence Act

Regarding the murder charge against Accused Nos. 2 and 3, the Court noted the absence of "last seen" evidence and failure to trace the accused's travel from Andhra Pradesh to the crime scene

While weapons (MO13, MO14) were recovered, the panch witnesses (PW2, PW4) were close associates of the complainant rather than independent locals, despite locals being available

Applying the *Sharad Birdichand Sarda* test, the Court held that the mere recovery of blood-stained weapons, in the absence of a proved motive or a complete chain of events, cannot sustain a conviction

The Court set aside the Trial Court's judgment dated 28.05.2018

The appeals were allowed, and Accused Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 were acquitted of all charges due to a lack of cogent evidence and significant investigative lapses

The Court ordered their immediate release and the refund of any fines paid