Supreme Court Acquits Murder Convicts After 25 Years: Once Eyewitness Account Is Rejected, Suspicion and an Incomplete Chain of Circumstances Cannot Sustain Conviction

Case Name: Kartika @ Kirtan @ Kirtan Charan Jena & Anr. Etc. v. State of Odisha

Date of Judgment: 18 September 2026

Citation: 2026 INSC 1015

Bench: Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Prasanna B. Varale

Held: The Supreme Court held that once the alleged eyewitness testimony had been discarded as unreliable, the conviction could be sustained only if every incriminating circumstance was independently proved and all such circumstances formed a complete chain pointing exclusively towards the guilt of the accused. Mere suspicion, however strong, could not substitute proof beyond reasonable doubt.

The alleged occurrence took place on a pitch-dark night, and the prosecution witnesses claimed to have observed it from a considerable distance. The Court found it unsafe to accept that the witnesses could have identified the assailants when the source of light was a torch allegedly carried by the accused themselves. Identification based merely upon the sounds of assault was equally unreliable.

The Court also found material inconsistencies regarding which witnesses were present at the scene. Although the informant’s FIR identified only two persons as eyewitnesses, another witness later claimed that the informant and several other family members had also witnessed the occurrence. The witnesses’ conduct, including the informant’s failure to immediately alert family members or villagers despite allegedly witnessing a brutal murder, was found unnatural.

The prosecution’s theory that a 53-kilogram laterite stone was used to kill the deceased was unsupported by reliable evidence. It failed to establish how the stone was brought to the spot, who used it, or even that the alleged stone was recovered and sent to the medical officer for examination. Consequently, the prosecution failed to prove an unbroken chain of circumstances excluding every reasonable hypothesis consistent with the appellants’ innocence.

Summary: The appellants were prosecuted for the murder of Dhruba Pradhan, who was allegedly intercepted and brutally assaulted in a paddy field on the evening of 14 May 2001. The prosecution alleged that the accused had earlier threatened to kill him, searched for him while armed with deadly weapons and ultimately attacked him with stones, sticks, an iron rod and other weapons.

The Trial Court convicted six accused under Sections 148, 506 and 302 read with Section 149 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Although the Orissa High Court found that the alleged eyewitnesses could not have identified the assailants on a pitch-dark night merely from the sounds of assault, it nevertheless upheld the convictions on the basis of circumstantial evidence. During the pendency of the appeals before the Supreme Court, two appellants died, and the proceedings abated against them.

The Supreme Court found the High Court’s approach legally unsustainable. Once the ocular version had been rejected, the remaining circumstances had to satisfy the fivefold test governing circumstantial evidence laid down in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra. Each circumstance had to be conclusively established, collectively form an unbroken chain, and exclude every hypothesis other than the guilt of the accused.

The prosecution evidence did not meet this standard. The witnesses were close relatives of the deceased and gave materially inconsistent accounts about their presence at the scene. The possibility of proper identification in complete darkness was doubtful. No reliable recovery connected the appellants with the murder weapons, and the prosecution failed to establish its theory regarding the use of a 53-kilogram stone. The deceased also had several criminal cases against him, and the evidence indicated that a large number of villagers bore hostility towards him, leaving open the possibility of alternative perpetrators.

The Supreme Court reiterated that circumstances “must or should” be proved and not merely “may be” proved. Since substantial gaps remained in the prosecution case and two reasonable views were possible, the view favourable to the accused was required to prevail.

Decision: The Supreme Court allowed the appeals and granted the appellants the benefit of doubt. It quashed and set aside the Orissa High Court’s judgment dated 6 May 2009 as well as the Trial Court’s judgment of conviction and sentence dated 28 January 2004.