{"id":3171,"date":"2025-06-19T14:28:49","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T08:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/?p=3171"},"modified":"2025-06-19T14:28:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T08:58:49","slug":"supreme-court-acquits-murder-accused-rules-last-seen-together-insufficient-for-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/supreme-court-acquits-murder-accused-rules-last-seen-together-insufficient-for-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Acquits Murder Accused, Rules ‘Last Seen Together’ Insufficient for Conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

PADMAN BIBHAR\u00a0 [<\/strong>APPELLANT]\u00a0 \u00a0Vs.\u00a0 <\/strong>STATE OF ODISHA\u00a0 [<\/strong>RESPONDENT]<\/h1>\n

CRIMINAL APPEAL (Arising out of SLP(Crl.) No. 17440 OF 2024)<\/p>\n

(2JB, SANJAY KAROL and PRASHANT MISHRA JJ., delivered by PRASHANT KUMAR MISHRA, J<\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On May 22, 2025, the Supreme Court of India acquitted a man accused of murder, stressing that a conviction cannot rest solely on the \u201clast seen together\u201d theory. The appellant was earlier convicted under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code by both the Trial Court and the Orissa High Court. However, the Supreme Court overturned these convictions, finding the evidence insufficient for a guilty verdict.<\/p>\n

The bench comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra observed that the only incriminating evidence presented by the prosecution was that the accused was last seen with the deceased. The Court reiterated that this alone is not a strong enough basis to uphold a conviction, unless supported by other corroborative evidence.<\/p>\n

The case revolved around the death of a young man who had gone with the accused to watch a football match. Later, the informant received news that his son had died in a road accident. However, a post-mortem revealed that the cause of death was asphyxia due to throttling, contradicting the initial claim of an accident. During investigation, the appellant was arrested and allegedly confessed to the murder, also leading police to the site where the body was hidden.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the Court noted several concerns. First, the alleged motive was introduced for the first time during the court proceedings, and the father of the deceased (a key prosecution witness) had not mentioned any such motive in his primary testimony. Secondly, the Court expressed caution over relying on a confession made during police interrogation, especially when no other strong evidence was presented.<\/p>\n

Referring to established case law, including Rambraksh @ Jalim vs. State of Chhattisgarh (2016)<\/em> and Kanhaiya Lal vs. State of Rajasthan (2014)<\/em>, the Court reaffirmed that being \u201clast seen\u201d with the deceased is a weak piece of evidence unless supported by other facts that link the accused directly to the crime. In both cited cases, the Supreme Court had held that such evidence, without corroboration, cannot conclusively establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

The bench emphasized that while the evidence might raise suspicion, it falls short of the legal standard required to convict someone of murder. The Court held that the nature of the circumstantial evidence was not conclusive and did not rule out other possibilities.<\/p>\n

Consequently, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal, setting aside the conviction and sentence imposed by the lower courts. It ordered the release of the appellant, provided he was not required in any other legal proceedings.<\/p>\n

This judgment reinforces the principle that convictions in criminal cases must be based on concrete and credible evidence, ensuring that no person is wrongfully punished based merely on suspicion or weak circumstantial links.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PADMAN BIBHAR\u00a0 [APPELLANT]\u00a0 \u00a0Vs.\u00a0 STATE OF ODISHA\u00a0 [RESPONDENT] CRIMINAL APPEAL (Arising out of SLP(Crl.) No. 17440 OF 2024) (2JB, SANJAY KAROL and PRASHANT MISHRA JJ., delivered by PRASHANT KUMAR MISHRA, J.)   On May 22, 2025, the Supreme Court of India acquitted a man accused of murder, stressing that a conviction cannot rest solely on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judgement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3174,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3171\/revisions\/3174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}