NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court (SC) has acquitted a man convicted of murdering his live-in partner, ruling that an extra-judicial confession with material discrepancies cannot be the sole basis for conviction.
The accused was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court in Maharashtra’s Thane in 2004, a decision later upheld by the Bombay High Court (HC) in 2010. However, the SC overturned the conviction, stating that while there was strong suspicion against the accused, suspicion alone cannot replace hard evidence.
The bench set aside the trial court and HC orders, which were primarily based on the accused’s confession to family members and relatives. The court ruled that such a confession lacked credibility and contained contradictions, making it unsafe to uphold the conviction.
“No doubt there is strong suspicion, and the needle of suspicion points towards him. However, as settled jurisprudence dictates, suspicion—no matter how strong—cannot replace concrete evidence. The prosecution’s reliance on an extra-judicial confession, which lacks credibility and suffers from contradictions, makes it unfit for sustaining a conviction,” the bench stated.
