Supreme Court India: Police Evidence Creation Justifies Acquittal

The Supreme Court recently upheld the acquittal of a woman accused of murdering her stepmother and minor half-brother in 2011. [State of Himachal Pradesh v. Anchla @ Chanchla]A Bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi found that the prosecution had failed to establish a complete chain of circumstances proving that the accused had committed the murders.In its judgment passed on October 1, the Court found that the investigating officer had failed to explain what led the police to record the statements of a taxi driver and a hotel employee, whose accounts were later used to build the case against the accused (Anchla).The Court said that the two witnesses appeared to have been “set up” to complete the chain of circumstantial evidence against the accused.“It is well settled that the role of the investigating officer is to collect evidence and not to create one,” the Court observed.It went on to explain that when the police record the statement of a person with no apparent connection to the crime without disclosing how that person emerged during the investigation, it may raise serious doubts about whether the witness was introduced to create evidence.Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay BishnoiThe case arose from the murders of the accused’s stepmother, Mithilesh Kumari, and minor half-brother, Bhupinder Singh. Their bodies were found inside their house in Himachal Pradesh's Diur on September 7, 2011. Both had been strangled.The accused, Anchla, was Amar Singh's daughter from his

This ruling provides a strong precedent for criminal defense lawyers in India to challenge the admissibility and credibility of evidence, particularly witness statements, if there are doubts about how the investigating officer procured them. It reinforces the principle that evidence must be collected, not manufactured, offering a basis to argue for acquittal in cases built on questionable circumstantial evidence.

Source: Original reporting via Bar and Bench