New Delhi: In a criminal trial, suspicion, howsoever grave, cannot substitute proof for convicting an accused, the Supreme Court held and acquitted a woman and her paramour for murdering the husband.
In this case, appellants Nithya and her paramour Suresh were convicted and sentenced to undergo life imprisonment for the murder of Nathiya’s husband Gurunathan of Vellore in Tamil Nadu, whose dead body was found in a well. The trial court awarded life term and this was upheld by the Madras high court and both filed appeals against this judgment.
Allowing their appeals a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Amitav Roy said the imputation of sustained unchaste conduct and the activities of the wife, if true, the possibility of the deceased committing suicide as an extreme step in a unbearable anguished state of mind also cannot be wholly excluded.
The bench said “on an analysis of the overall fact situation, we are of the considered opinion that the chain of circumstantial evidence relied upon by the prosecution to prove the charge is visibly incomplete and incoherent to permit conviction of the appellants on the basis thereof without any trace of doubt.
