Death sentence overturned: Supreme Court acquits Dashwanth; unfair trial and broken circumstantial chain doom prosecution
Case name: Dashwanth v. State of Tamil Nadu
Date of Order: 08 October 2025
Citation: 2025 INSC 1203; Criminal Appeal Nos. 3633–3634 of 2024
Bench: Justice Vikram Nath; Justice Sanjay Karol; Justice Sandeep Mehta
Held: The conviction and death sentence cannot stand where the trial violated fair-trial guarantees and the prosecution’s circumstantial chain is incomplete. Non-compliance with Section 207 CrPC (supply of papers), late appointment of legal-aid counsel with no real preparation time, a rushed examination of 30 witnesses in ~6 weeks, and same-day sentencing without the Bachan Singh–mandated inquiry into aggravating/mitigating factors vitiate the process. On merits, the “last-seen” account surfaced belatedly and was not reflected in the FIR; the crucial temple CCTV footage was never collected or proved; the disclosure/recoveries narrative was internally inconsistent and pre-dated the shown arrest; and the DNA/FSL evidence suffered from chain-of-custody gaps and was unreliable. Suspicion, however strong, cannot replace proof beyond reasonable doubt.
Summary: A seven-year-old child went missing on 5 February 2017 and was later found charred. The trial court convicted the neighbour, Dashwanth, of offences under the IPC and POCSO and imposed the death penalty, which the High Court confirmed. The Supreme Court first found a fundamental denial of a fair trial: charges were framed before supplying relied-upon documents, legal-aid counsel was appointed only four days before prosecution evidence began, and the court completed the entire prosecution evidence in barely a month and a half, then pronounced conviction and death sentence on the same day without any independent sentencing inquiry, psychological evaluation, or jail-conduct report. Turning to the evidence, the Court held that the prosecution’s case entirely circumstantial failed on every key link: the “last-seen” witness did not disclose this vital fact contemporaneously and his account was inconsistent with the initial complaint and the search narrative; the temple CCTV clip said to show the accused carrying a bag was never seized or exhibited, inviting an adverse inference; the alleged confession and recoveries were tainted by timeline contradictions suggesting prior police knowledge; and the forensic/DNA results were compromised by an unproven chain of custody and could not safely be relied upon. Given these infirmities, neither the conviction nor the sentence could be sustained.
Decision: Appeals allowed. The judgments of the Trial Court and High Court are set aside. The appellant is acquitted of all charges and ordered to be released forthwith, if not required in any other case.