Emphasizing that investigating agencies must collect evidence rather than manufacture circumstances to build a case, the Supreme Court of India has upheld the acquittal of a woman accused of murdering her stepmother and minor stepbrother. A Bench comprising Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Vijay Bishnoi dismissed an appeal filed by the State of Himachal Pradesh against the High Court’s acquittal order, holding that the prosecution failed to establish an unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence or prove the incriminating circumstances beyond reasonable doubt.
Background of the Case
The case dates back to September 7, 2011, when Bhagi Ram (PW-1) informed the police that his daughter, Mithilesh Kumari (D-1), had been missing for nearly a week from her locked residence in Diur and that a foul smell was effusing from the house. Police broke open the door lock and discovered the decomposed bodies of D-1 and her minor son, Bhupinder Singh (D-2). An autopsy confirmed both died of asphyxia resulting from antemortem strangulation five to seven days earlier.
The prosecution alleged that the respondent-accused, Anchla alias Chanchla—the daughter of D-1’s deceased husband from his first marriage—committed the double murder on the night of August 31, 2011, to grab ancestral property purportedly bequeathed to D-2. The case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence:
- PW-1 claimed he saw the accused at the house on the evening of August 31, 2011.
- A taxi driver (PW-4) deposed that he drove the accused from Chamba to Diur that evening and returned post-midnight, noticing a bleeding injury on her left thumb.
- A hotel worker (PW-18) in Chamba deposed that the accused stayed at the hotel late that night.
- Upon arrest, police recovered a bunch of keys operable on the house lock, the victim’s mobile phone without a SIM, and an OPD prescription slip showing medical treatment for a thumb injury on September 1, 2011.
- Forensic analysis matched the accused’s DNA profile with dried blood scraped from a trunk inside the victim’s house.
On November 7, 2012, the Court of Session, Chamba, convicted the accused under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced her to life imprisonment. On July 28, 2014, the High Court of Himachal Pradesh set aside the conviction on appeal. The State subsequently appealed the acquittal before the Supreme Court.
Arguments of the Parties
Counsel for the State of Himachal Pradesh submitted that:
- The High Court discarded reliable evidence on surmises; the forensic DNA match on the trunk, coupled with the accused’s bleeding thumb injury on the fateful night, established her presence at the crime scene.
- The testimonies of PW-1, the taxi driver (PW-4), and the hotel employee (PW-18) were credible, and the recovery of keys that operated the house lock conclusively pointed to her guilt.
Counsel for the respondent-accused argued that:
- The last seen theory collapsed due to an unexplained gap of nearly a week between the alleged sighting and the discovery of the bodies, leaving intervening factors unexcluded.
- PW-1 improved upon his police statement under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and maintained an unnatural silence for six to seven days despite living in the same house.
- The testimonies of PW-4 and PW-18 were artificially procured without any taxi receipts or hotel register entries.
- The seizure witness admitted the lock was on the door handle rather than the latch, rendering the lock-and-key recovery unreliable, while no document was produced to prove any property bequest or motive.
The Court’s Analysis
The Supreme Court reiterated the settled principles governing appeals against acquittals. Referring to State of Rajasthan v. Shera Ram Alias Vishnu Dutta and State of M.P. v. Bacchudas alias Balram, the Bench affirmed that an acquittal strengthens the presumption of innocence and cannot be overturned merely because another view is possible. Reaffirming the standard of justice, the Court observed: “A miscarriage of justice which may arise from acquittal of the guilty is no less than from the conviction of an innocent.”
Citing Rajesh Prasad v. State of Bihar, the Bench noted that interference with an acquittal is permissible only in the rarest of rare cases where findings are perverse. Evaluating the circumstantial evidentiary threshold under Hanumant v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Sharad Birdhichand Sarda vs. State of Maharashtra, the Court underlined that: “there must be a chain of circumstances so far complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and it must be such as to show that within all human probability the act must have been committed by the accused.”
Scrutinizing the record, the Supreme Court highlighted several fatal infirmities in the investigation and prosecution:
- Investigating Agency’s Role and Doubtful Witnesses: The Court severely criticized the prosecution for failing to explain how the investigating officer (PW-20) identified or approached PW-4 and PW-18, especially when neither witness had reason to volunteer information: “It is well settled that the role of the investigating officer is to collect evidence and not to create one. Where there is no occasion for the investigating officer to record statement of a person, or for that person to impart information to the police, yet, the police proceeds to record his statement without narrating the circumstance in which it was considered necessary to record his statement, a serious doubt arises as to whether that witness has been set up to create evidence.” The Bench noted that PW-4’s statement was recorded after the accused was already in custody and her thumb injury was known, showing the police had the opportunity to artificially weave a story.
- Unreliable “Last Seen” and Investigative Lapses: PW-1 omitted mentioning in his Section 161 CrPC statement that he had seen the accused talking to D-2, making his court testimony a material improvement. His failure to report the locked house for seven days despite residing on the premises undermined his credibility. Furthermore, the failure of the investigating agency to obtain and exhibit Call Detail Records (CDRs) with tower locations for both mobile phones was a serious lapse that suppressed critical evidence regarding their actual locations.
- Inconclusive Recoveries and Forensic Evidence: Seizure witness PW-3 conceded that the lock was hanging on the door handle rather than the latch shutting the door, and the officer present at the lock-breaking did not identify the lock in court. Consequently, the discovery of matching keys was rendered inconsequential. Regarding the DNA profile match from the trunk scrape, the Court noted that the accused was an admitted regular visitor to the house, making prior blood deposition probable. Significantly, no blood belonging to the accused was detected on the victims’ clothing or on the ligature materials.
- Absence of Motive: The prosecution produced no documentary evidence of any bequest in favour of D-2. The Court observed that Amar Singh left five daughters from his first wife, meaning the accused alone would not inherit the estate even if D-2 were eliminated.
The Decision
Concluding that the circumstantial chain was broken and inconclusive, the Supreme Court observed: “In a nutshell, neither the incriminating circumstances were proved beyond reasonable doubt nor they constituted a chain so far complete as to exclude all hypothesis consistent with the innocence of the accused and point conclusively that it was the accused and no one else who, in all human probability, had committed the murders.”
Finding no perversity or error in the High Court’s assessment, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal filed by the State and upheld the acquittal of Anchla alias Chanchla.
Case Details
Case Title: The State of Himachal Pradesh v. Anchla @ Chanchla
Case No.: Criminal Appeal No. 166 of 2019
Bench: Justice Manoj Misra, Justice Vijay Bishnoi
Date: October 01, 2026
