Supreme Court acquits death row convict in triple murder of wife, daughter and mother

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday acquitted a man on death row for the triple murder of his mother, wife and two-year-old daughter for his alleged extramarital affair in Pune in 2012.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra and K V Vishwanathan said the suspicion, however strong it may be, cannot take the place of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

"An accused cannot be convicted solely on the ground of suspicion, no matter how strong it is. An accused is presumed to be innocent unless proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," the bench said.

In its judgment on October 17, the court allowed an appeal filed by Vishwajeet Kerba Masalkar against the Bombay High Court's 2019 and the trial court's 2016 judgments, holding that those were not sustainable in law.

Concerning the circumstance of the motive of the extramarital affair, the bench said, "We find that solely based on circumstance of motive, a conviction cannot be based."

The police claimed the appellant initially misled them about the theft at his house on October 4, 2012, by filing a complaint but all the stolen jewellery, besides the blood-stained clothes, and hammer used in the offence were recovered at his instance. The prosecution also relied upon the testimony of Madhusudan Kulkarni, injured in the incident.

However, the bench said, "On deeper scrutiny, we do not find that the testimony of Kulkarni would inspire confidence in the mind of the court to base the conviction for the offence punishable under Section 302 of IPC."

The bench pointed out Kulkarni's statement was recorded after six days. Secondly, when the evidence shows that he was conscious and oriented on the date of the incident, no neighbour has been examined to corroborate his testimony.

Though according to him, after the incident, the neighbours had come and he himself had asked them to get the doctor.

Also, his testimony does not show that he had witnessed the incident and he himself admitted that he had given the statement after he was informed by the police that the present appellant had committed the crime, the bench pointed out.

Finding his testimony full of contradictions, the bench said, "A conviction could be based solely on the evidence of a solitary witness, however, the testimony of such a witness is required to be found to be credible and trustworthy. It is also necessary to examine the testimony of such a witness critically."

The court also noted the circumstances which have been relied on by the trial court are –the recovery of the hammer; blood-stained clothes; and CCTV Footage -- which the High Court itself has disbelieved. It also pointed out those recoveries were made from open places accessible to all. The court also found it difficult to believe that the hammer recovered from a canal after three days could still carry blood on it, despite a flow of water.

"It is a primary principle that the accused “must be” and not merely “may be” guilty before a court can convict and every possible hypothesis except the guilt of the accused has to be ruled out. In our considered opinion, in the present case, the prosecution has failed to do so," the bench said, setting aside the conviction of the appellant.