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When the case against the accused is solely made of circumstantial evidences, there must be a link that indicates guilt. Pure suspicion and speculation without any intention of guilt cannot make a person ‘guilty’ of an offence and bail must be granted to such a person. This was decreed by the Hon’ble Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava in the case Mohd. Sharib Vs. State of U.P [CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. – 34667 of 2020] on the 09^th of July 2021 in the Hon’ble High Court at Allahabad.

The brief facts of the case are, On the night of 09.10.2018, an Ex-MLA was found dead in his house at Bulandshahar. The deceased was found lying on the bed in bleeding condition and there was gunshot injury on his head. The informant suspected that some unknown person killed him and lodged FIR against unknown. On the basis of FIR, the investigation started, the inquest report was prepared and post-mortem of dead body was undertaken. Investigating Officer investigated the offence and finding no evidence submitted Final Report. Re-investigation was conducted by CBCID. Evidence was collected and charge-sheet was filed against the accused applicant. The present application is filed by the accused applicant on the grounds that there was no evidence to accuse him.

The learned counsel for the applicant submitted that he was not named in the FIR nor was he suspected. It was submitted that in order to implicate the applicant, evidence was manipulated, false evidence was created and certain witnesses were re- examined who made improvement to implicate the accused applicant. He was doing the work of guard and was for the protection of the deceased. There is no reliable evidence against him in support of the police version. The counsel for the informant and the AGA opposed this by submitting that, there is evidence on record which is in the nature of circumstances which conclusively indicated the involvement of the accused applicant in the commission of the offence. It was further submitted that the accused and deceased slept in the same room and the accused had the key to such a room. It was also submitted that the murder was committed by the pistol which was in the name of the wife of the deceased and in the evidence, it has come that pistol was always with the accused applicant. Submission of the learned counsel is that the accused applicant was having illicit relation with the wife of the deceased and because of that he planned the murder of the deceased and caused his death. However, no evidence was found in support of this claim.

The learned judge heard both the parties and observed that initially, none of the witnesses had stated anything against the accused. Final Report was submitted by IO concluding that no evidence of murder was found and on 19.3.20019, the SHO made a written request for accepting the FR. Thus, it is clear that after the first round of investigation, nothing was found against the applicant. In the statement recorded on 13.07.2020, it was observed that the witnesses have only expressed their suspicion and the applicant was accused on the basis of the statements of two other persons who are the co-accused and thus much reliance cannot be placed. “It is pertinent to mention that the observations aforesaid made by the IO are based on speculation and suspicion. Moreover, the case against the accused applicant is totally based on the circumstantial evidence that he was sleeping in the same room with the deceased. This fact does not appear to be supported by any believable evidence or eyewitness account.”

Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the court went ahead and decreed that, “the accused applicant is not named in FIR; no motive was assigned to him for causing death of the deceased; there is no eyewitness account supporting the allegation against the applicant; even suspicion was not expressed against him in the FIR even though FIR was lodged by the brother which was lodged on fifth day after the date of incident and there was sufficient time with the informant for making allegations, or at least expressing suspicion against the applicant. The case is totally based on circumstantial evidence and it is difficult at this stage to say that the circumstances alleged against the applicant, if taken together and linked, form a chain of circumstance conclusively leading to an inference that the accused-applicant must have committed the said offence. Apparently unrelated circumstances if joined together must form a chain of circumstances indicating the guilt. I find at this stage that such link is missing”. Thus, the bail application was allowed.

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