Acquitting a man convicted in the murders of his wife and two sons in Mathura in 2017, the Allahabad high court has ruled that in cases based solely on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution must establish a reasonable and convincing motive, observing that it would be unsafe to convict an accused in the absence of a potent motive.

In the absence of some reasonable and potent motive in a case of circumstantial evidence, it would be unsafe to convict the appellant, said the court. (For Representation)

A division bench of Justice JJ Munir and Justice Sanjiv Kumar allowed the appeal filed by Babu and directed that he be released from jail forthwith. As per the facts of the case, on September 3, 2017, an FIR was lodged by the aunt of the appellant that in the morning hours when she went to appellant’s house, she saw the bodies of appellant’s wife and their two sons. All three were killed by some sharp object. The appellant was arrested the same day from Delhi.

On January 27, 2022, the trial court of Mathura convicted him and awarded life sentence. The present appeal was filed against the sentence. Although it was claimed by police that the murder weapon was recovered on information provided by the appellant, it was recovered from an open land and there were no independent witnesses testifying that the appellant informed police about the place he kept the weapon.

“In our considered opinion, therefore, this incriminating circumstance of recovery of the weapon of murder at the pointing out of the appellant has to be discarded,” said the court in its order dated July 13.

The court then said, “Here, the testimony, that has been offered by the prosecution, does not attribute any motive to the appellant to commit such a gruesome crime. There is some mention of a motive in the statement of the appellant recorded by the Police under Section 161 Cr.P.C., but no evidence thereof could be produced in Court by the prosecution.”

“In the absence of some reasonable and potent motive in a case of circumstantial evidence, like the present one, it would be unsafe to convict the appellant. We are aware of the well settled principle that the absence of motive alone will not be a ground to throw out a prosecution based entirely on circumstantial evidence, where it establishes the guilt beyond reasonable doubt, but in a case where the circumstances otherwise do not establish the case, the absence of motive, as in the present case, would certainly weigh in favour of the appellant,” the court observed.