Hyderabad: The Supreme Court on Thursday, September 3, acquitted a man identified as the prime accused in a 2012 kidnapping and murder case in Telangana, citing a lack of evidence connecting him to the crime.
In 2012, a man was kidnapped after he left his home for Hyderabad, and his body was later found inside a refrigerator in a flat allegedly leased by the prime accused. Six people were named as accused in his murder, Live Law reported.
The victim’s father had paid Rs 1.5 lakh to a man who called demanding ransom after his son’s disappearance. Police later traced the call to accused number 6 and arrested him.
His confession led to the recovery of the victim’s body and the arrest of A1 to A5.
A trial court convicted A1 to A6, while A4 died during the trial. The Telangana High Court then acquitted all the other accused except A1. The prime accused’s conviction was based on the testimony of a watchman at the apartment where the victim’s body was found.
The prime accused’s failure to explain the presence of the body in the flat was used as incriminating evidence under Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (now Section 109 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023).
He then approached the Supreme Court, challenging the order.
A bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K Vinod Chandran, hearing the case, noted that the accused’s involvement emerged only from the confessions of the other accused, who were not eligible to inculpate a co-accused.
The top court also affirmed the High Court’s observation that the electronic evidence could not be relied upon. It said the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage showing the accused withdrawing ransom money from an ATM could not be relied upon, as the accused could not be identified from the footage and no certificate under Section 65 of the Evidence Act (now Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023) was produced to prove it.
Call records produced as evidence were also set aside because the nodal officer of the telecom service provider was never examined and no Section 65 certificate was produced.
The court also noted that A6 led the police to the apartment, and no independent witness was examined in this regard. Since A6 was acquitted, his statement could not be used to incriminate the prime accused.
The court finally held that there was no evidence to rely upon.
“That the deceased died of asphyxia due to smothering, associated with strangulation, is established by the post-mortem report and the dead body was detected, tucked away in a refrigerator inside an apartment. But for these, there is no scrap of evidence worthy of reliance to connect A1 to A6 to the murder or even the flat. The investigating officer definitely was led by the confessions and failed to collect any substantive evidence connecting the accused to the crime,” the court held while ordering the accused’s release.
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