In a judgment that serves as a
scathing indictment of investigative apathy and judicial overreach, the Supreme
Court of India has acquitted a stepfather convicted for the murder of his
six-year-old daughter. The case of Rohit Jangde v. State of Chhattisgarh is not
merely about one man's freedom; it is a haunting exposé of how a botched
investigation, built on conjectures, interpolated documents, and weak
circumstantial evidence, can lead to the incarceration of an innocent person.
The Court's decision is a
masterclass in the appreciation of circumstantial evidence, the strict
application of Section 27 of the Evidence Act, and the fundamental principle
that suspicion, however strong, cannot take the place of proof. The judgment
meticulously dismantles the three circumstances relied upon by the
prosecution—last seen together, recovery of remains at the instance of the
accused, and DNA matching—and holds that they do not form a complete chain
pointing unerringly to the guilt of the accused.
This is a judgment that every
criminal lawyer, every investigating officer, and every judge must read and
internalize. It is a reminder that the liberty of an individual cannot be
sacrificed at the altar of an inept investigation, and that the courts must
remain vigilant guardians of the presumption of innocence.
I. The Tragedy: A Child Missing, A Family
Broken
The appellant, Rohit Jangde, was
living with his two wives and three children. One child was born to him from
his first wife, and two children belonged to his second wife (PW7) from her
previous marriage with PW17. On 5th October, 2018, a quarrel broke out between
the accused and PW7, during which PW7 was physically assaulted. This prompted
her to leave the matrimonial home and proceed to her parents' house. PW7 was
admitted to a hospital for treatment.
On her request, her mother, PW2,
went to the accused's house to pick up the grandchildren. However, the first
wife of the accused informed her that the accused had taken the younger child.
Astonishingly, despite this information, no immediate effort was made to trace
the missing child. No missing complaint was filed. Days passed in silence.
It was only on 11th October,
2018, at 13:20 hours, that a missing complaint was belatedly registered at
Sahaspur Lohara Police Station in District Kabirdham. The complaint was lodged
not by the anguished mother, but by PW2, the grandmother, accompanied by her
husband.
Thereafter, allegedly on the
confession statement of the accused under Section 27 of the Evidence Act,
recorded on 13th October, 2018, the accused is said to have led the police
party to a field from where some burnt bones and ashes were recovered, and from
a nearby canal, a skull and some bones, wrapped in a green saree, were
recovered.
The prosecution built its case on
three circumstances: the last seen together theory propounded through a
neighbour; the recovery of the charred remains based on information supplied by
the accused; and the matching of DNA profiles of the bone remnants with the
biological parents of the deceased child. The trial court convicted the
accused, and the High Court affirmed the conviction. The stepfather appealed to
the Supreme Court.
II. The First Circumstance: The Last Seen
Theory Collapses
The prosecution relied on the
testimony of PW8, a neighbour of the accused, to establish that the accused had
taken the child from the house on a motor bike. According to her, she
volunteered this information to the police seven days after 5th October, 2018.
The Supreme Court found this
circumstance fraught with inconsistencies and entirely unreliable.
Critically, the Court examined
the timeline of the accused's arrest. The prosecution's own case was that the
accused was arrested on 6th October, 2018, in connection with the assault on
PW7, and was released from judicial custody only on 8th October, 2018. This was
corroborated by PW15, the Investigating Officer, who spoke of the arrest on 6th
October, remand, and subsequent release on 8th October.
If the accused was in custody
from 6th October to 8th October, the last seen theory—which posits that the
accused took the child on 5th October or before his arrest—could not, by
itself, establish his involvement in the murder. The child was last seen with
the accused on 5th October, but the accused was arrested the next day. The
missing complaint was filed only on 11th October, days after his release. The
Court found it strange that no enquiries were made about the missing child
during the period the accused was in custody, and that the family and police,
despite being informed by the first wife that the child went with the accused,
took no action for nearly a week.
The First Information Statement,
based on information supplied by PW2, stated that the child went missing at
9:00 PM on 6th October, 2018—after the accused was already arrested. This
internal contradiction, borne out from the records, put the prosecution's last
seen theory in serious peril. The Court held that the last seen together theory
failed miserably.
III. The Second Circumstance: The Recovery
Under Section 27—A Procedural Farce
The recovery allegedly made at
the instance of the accused was even more problematic. The memorandum under
Section 27 of the Evidence Act, produced as Ex. P4, was drawn up on 13th
October, 2018 at 10:30 AM. The admissible portion of the statement was: "I
will show you the place... where her bones and ashes are and the place where
her skull and bones were..."
The police were led by the
accused first to a field, from where bones with ashes were recovered at 10:55
AM, evidenced by Property Seizure Memo Ex.P5. Thereafter, three fishermen (PW3
to PW5) were engaged to search the canal, and they recovered a skull with eight
teeth of the upper jaw and a piece of bone wrapped in a green saree at 1:00 PM
on the same day, as per Ex.P3 Property Seizure Memo.
However, the fatal flaw in this
narrative was the timing of the accused's arrest. The Arrest/Court Surrender
Memo produced as Ex.P27 indicated that the accused was arrested only on 13th
October, 2018 at 22:00 hours—after the recoveries were made.
The Court noted the clear
interpolation in the arrest documents. At column No. 8 of the FIR, the arrest
was shown to have been carried out on 6th October, 2018 at 13:40 hours. But in
Column No. 2, the date and time had been changed from 05.10.2018 and 12:40 to
06 or 08.10.2018 and 13:40. The interpolation was clear from the documents
produced, raising a reasonable doubt as to whether the accused was actually
arrested at 12:40 hours on 5th October, 2018—which would have seriously
hampered the last seen theory as projected by the prosecution.
More importantly, Section 27 of
the Evidence Act applies only to information received from a person accused of
any offence while in the custody of the police, leading to the discovery of a
fact. At the time of the alleged statement on 13th October, 2018 at 10:30 AM,
the accused was not in police custody. The FIR was registered on 11th October,
and the accused had accompanied his wife to the police station to lodge the
missing complaint. There was nothing to indicate that he was even suspected of
being responsible for the child's disappearance. The recovery, therefore, was
removed from the ambit of Section 27.
The Court relied on the Calcutta
High Court's decision in Durlav Namasudra v. Emperor, which held that if
information comes from a person who is not in the custody of the police, it
cannot be brought under Section 27. The paradox, as noted by the Chief Justice
in that case, is that Section 27 permits reliance on a statement made to the police
leading to discovery of a fact only when the person is in custody—a position
that continues to be the law.
However, the Court drew upon the
decision in Dharam Deo Yadav v. State of Uttar Pradesh, where it was held that
even if a recovery is not admissible under Section 27 for want of custody, it
can be admissible as conduct under Section 8 of the Evidence Act. The Court
also referred to Ramkishan Mithanal Sharma v. State of Bombay, where it was
held that evidence of an accused leading to a discovery, though not admissible
under Section 27, could still be admitted as a link in the chain of evidence
under Section 8.
Thus, while the recovery could
not be used as a confessional statement under Section 27, the fact that the
accused led the police to the location could be considered as conduct under
Section 8. However, the Court emphasized that such evidence under Section 8 is
weak and can only offer corroboration; it cannot by itself result in a
conviction.
IV. The Third Circumstance: DNA
Matching—Incomplete and Inconclusive
The third circumstance projected
by the prosecution was the matching of DNA profiles of the bone remnants with
the DNA profiles of the biological parents of the deceased child. PW18, the
Senior Scientific Officer, deposed that the DNA profiles of the vertebrae and
teeth recovered from the canal matched the samples taken from PW7 and PW17.
However, the Court noted
significant gaps. The DNA profiles matched only with the piece of vertebrae and
the teeth recovered from the canal. The skull and the bones recovered from the
field—where the body was allegedly burnt—did not match the samples taken from
the parents. Moreover, the bones recovered were wrapped in a green saree,
allegedly belonging to PW7, but the prosecution never attempted to identify the
saree by confronting the witness while she was in the box.
The learned Senior Counsel for
the accused also argued that the matching of the DNA samples was not properly
put to the accused in his Section 313 Cr.P.C. examination. The Court, however,
examined the record and found that Question Nos. 157 to 159 specifically
informed the accused about the matching of DNA profiles, to which he responded
with a bland denial. This ground was therefore rejected.
Nevertheless, the Court held that
the DNA evidence, while establishing the death of the child, did not by itself
establish the accused's involvement in the murder. It was merely one link in
the chain, and a weak one at that, given the incomplete matching and the
failure to identify the saree.
V. The Missing Link: The Long Gap and the
Absence of Corpus Delicti
The Court highlighted two
additional factors that fatally undermined the prosecution's case.
First, the unexplained and
inordinate delay in lodging the missing complaint. The child was allegedly last
seen with the accused on 5th October. The first wife informed PW2 on the same
day that the accused had taken the child. Yet, no complaint was filed until
11th October. The accused was in custody from 6th to 8th October, and was
released two days before the FIR was lodged. No one thought to question him
during this period. No one thought to search for the child. This conduct, the
Court held, was wholly inconsistent with the behaviour of grieving relatives
and tilted the scales in favour of the accused.
Second, the corpus delicti—the
body of the victim—was not recovered in its entirety. Only fragments of bone
and a skull were found. There was no medical evidence to establish the cause or
time of death. In the absence of the corpus delicti and any evidence of the
time of death, the prosecution's case remained speculative.
VI. The Legal Principles Reiterated
The Supreme Court's judgment is a
reaffirmation of several fundamental principles of criminal jurisprudence.
First, circumstantial evidence
must form a complete chain. Each circumstance must be proved beyond reasonable
doubt, and the circumstances, taken together, must point unerringly to the
guilt of the accused, excluding every other hypothesis. In this case, the chain
was broken at multiple points.
Second, Section 27 of the
Evidence Act applies only when the accused is in police custody. Information
given by a person not in custody, even if it leads to a discovery, cannot be
admitted under Section 27. It may, however, be admissible as conduct under
Section 8, but such evidence is weak and requires strong corroboration.
Third, the last seen theory is
not a magic wand. The mere fact that the deceased was last seen with the
accused does not, by itself, establish guilt. The proximity of time and place,
the conduct of the parties, and the absence of any explanation must all be
considered. Where the timeline is contradicted by the prosecution's own
evidence, the theory collapses.
Fourth, delay in lodging an FIR
in a case of a missing child is fatal. When a child goes missing, natural human
conduct demands immediate action. An unexplained delay of nearly a week,
especially when the family was aware that the child was last seen with the
accused, casts grave doubt on the prosecution's case.
Fifth, the burden under Section
106 of the Evidence Act does not relieve the prosecution of its primary burden.
While facts within the special knowledge of the accused may call for an
explanation, this does not absolve the prosecution from proving its case beyond
reasonable doubt. A bald denial in Section 313 examination cannot fill the gaps
in the prosecution's evidence.
Sixth, suspicion, however strong,
cannot take the place of proof. The Court repeatedly emphasized that the case
was built on conjectures and surmises, not on solid evidence. The interpolated
arrest documents, the belated complaint, the weak recovery evidence, and the
incomplete DNA matching all pointed to an investigation that was inept and a
prosecution that was built on sand.
VII. The Final Verdict: Benefit of Doubt
Prevails
In view of the above, the Supreme
Court allowed the appeal. The orders of the Trial Court and the High Court were
set aside. The accused was directed to be released forthwith, if not wanted in
any other case.
The Court observed that only two
circumstances remained: the knowledge of the accused regarding the place from
which the bone remnants were recovered, which was admissible only as conduct
under Section 8, and the matching of some of the remnants with the DNA profiles
of the biological parents. These, by themselves, were insufficient to form a
complete chain of circumstances leading only to the hypothesis of guilt.
The Court also noted the serious
doubts raised by the interpolated arrest documents and the unexplained delay in
lodging the FIR. The suspicion regarding the earlier arrest and incarceration
of the accused posed serious difficulty in finding a hypothesis of guilt beyond
all reasonable doubt.
VIII. Appreciation for Counsel, Lament for
Investigation
Before parting, the Court
recorded its appreciation for the meticulous preparation of the learned
Government Advocate, who argued with astute vigor despite the major pitfalls in
the investigation. The Court also appreciated the efforts of the learned Senior
Counsel for the appellant in probing the State to effectively bring forth the
inept handling of the investigation.
However, the Court could not help
but observe:
"We cannot but observe that
if the investigation had been half as good as the preparation of the State
Counsel, the shroud of mystery over the poor child's disappearance and death,
could have been unravelled."
This is a damning indictment of
the investigative machinery. A six-year-old child died. Her stepfather spent
years in jail. And yet, the truth of what happened to her remains unknown. The
investigation was so botched that even after a trial and two appeals, the
courts are left with more questions than answers.
IX. Key Takeaways: The Law After Rohit
Jangde
1. Section 27 Requires Custody: The
information leading to discovery under Section 27 of the Evidence Act must come
from a person in police custody. Information from a person not in custody, even
if it leads to a discovery, is not admissible under Section 27. It may be
admissible as conduct under Section 8, but such evidence is weak and requires
corroboration.
2. Last Seen Theory is Not Conclusive: The
last seen theory cannot sustain a conviction unless it is proved that the
accused and the deceased were last seen together in proximity to the time and
place of the occurrence, and the chain of circumstances is complete. Where the
timeline is contradicted by the prosecution's wn evidence, the theory
collapses.
3. Delay in Lodging FIR in Missing Child Cases
is Fatal: Natural human conduct demands immediate action when a child goes
missing. An unexplained delay of days, especially when the family was aware of
the person with whom the child was last seen, casts grave doubt on the
prosecution's case.
4. Interpolated Documents Raise Reasonable
Doubt: Clear interpolation in official documents, such as arrest memos,
raises a reasonable doubt as to the veracity of the prosecution's timeline and
can vitiate the entire case.
5. DNA Evidence Must Be Complete: DNA
matching, to be conclusive, must cover all recovered remains. Where only some
remnants match and others do not, and where associated articles (like the
saree) are not properly identified, the evidence remains incomplete and
inconclusive.
6. Section 106 Does Not Absolve Prosecution:
The burden under Section 106 of the Evidence Act to explain facts within
special knowledge does not relieve the prosecution of its primary burden to
prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. A bald denial in Section 313 examination
cannot fill gaps in the prosecution's case.
7. Circumstantial Evidence Must Form a Complete
Chain: Each circumstance must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, and the
circumstances, taken together, must point unerringly to the guilt of the
accused, excluding every other hypothesis. Broken links and weak links cannot
sustain a conviction.
8. Suspicion Cannot Replace Proof: However
strong the suspicion, it cannot take the place of legal proof. Conviction must
be based on evidence, not on conjectures or surmises.
9. Appreciation of Counsel Does Not Cure
Investigation: While the Court may appreciate the efforts of counsel, it
cannot ignore the fundamental failures of the investigation. The liberty of an
individual cannot be sacrificed at the altar of inept policing.
10. Benefit of Doubt is a
Constitutional Right: Where the prosecution's case is riddled with
inconsistencies, contradictions, and gaps, the accused is entitled to the
benefit of the doubt. This is not a matter of grace, but of right, rooted in
the presumption of innocence.
X. Conclusion: A Child Lost, a System Exposed
The judgment in Rohit Jangde v.
State of Chhattisgarh is a haunting reminder of the consequences of
investigative failure. A six-year-old child is dead. Her body was never fully
recovered. The circumstances of her death remain shrouded in mystery. And a man
who may be innocent spent years in jail based on evidence that the Supreme
Court found wholly insufficient.
The Court's judgment does not
celebrate the acquittal of the accused. It mourns the failure of the system to
uncover the truth. The appreciation for the State Counsel's advocacy is
tempered by the lament that the investigation was not half as good.
This case should serve as a
wake-up call for every investigating officer, every prosecutor, and every
judge. The stakes in a criminal trial are not merely legal; they are human. A
flawed investigation does not merely result in a wrongful acquittal or conviction;
it results in a miscarriage of justice that reverberates through the lives of
everyone involved.
The law, as the Supreme Court has
reiterated, demands proof beyond reasonable doubt. It demands that the chain of
circumstances be complete. It demands that suspicion, however strong, must
yield to evidence. And when these demands are not met, the only just outcome is
acquittal.
Judgment Name: Rohit
Jangde v. State of Chhattisgarh (Criminal Appeal No. 689 of 2026 arising out of
SLP (Crl.) No. 5624 of 2024), Supreme Court of India, decided on February 17,
2026.
Questions for Judicial Officers and Law
Students
Question 1 (Section 27 of the
Evidence Act):
Under what circumstances can
information provided by an accused leading to the discovery of a fact be
admissible under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872? What is the legal
position when the accused is not in formal police custody at the time of
providing such information? Discuss with reference to the principles laid down
in Rohit Jangde v. State of Chhattisgarh, Dharam Deo Yadav v. State of Uttar
Pradesh, and Durlav Namasudra v. Emperor. Can such information still be used as
evidence under any other provision of the Evidence Act?
Question 2 (Circumstantial
Evidence and the Last Seen Theory):
Analyze the evidentiary value of
the "last seen together" theory in a case based on circumstantial
evidence. What are the essential prerequisites for this theory to sustain a
conviction? In the context of Rohit Jangde v. State of Chhattisgarh, discuss
how inconsistencies in the timeline of arrest, delay in lodging the FIR, and
the absence of corpus delicti can undermine the last seen theory and entitle
the accused to the benefit of the doubt.
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