2026 INSC 162 Page 1 of 18

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Reportable

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

Criminal Appeal No.689 of 2026

[@Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No.5624 of 2024]

Rohit Jangde

...Appellant

Versus

The State of Chhattisgarh

...Respondent

J U D G M E N T

K. Vinod Chandran, J.

Leave granted.

2. A botched investigation leaves many questions

unanswered and in the present case, the murder of a six-

year-old girl went unpunished and her stepfather was

incarcerated on mere conjectures. The impugned judgment

of the High Court affirmed the conviction and sentence of

the accused, the stepfather, on three circumstances. One,

the last seen together theory propounded through a

neighbour. Then, the ashes and the bony remnants from the

charred remains of the child, having been recovered on the

information supplied by the accused. And last, the skull and

teeth recovered from a canal having tallied with the sample

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DNA profile of the biological parents of the girl child,

establishing death unequivocally. The High Court also

emphasized the aspect of no explanation having been

offered by the accused regarding his knowledge of the

location from which the bony remnants of the deceased

were recovered; an incriminating circumstance under

Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. Whether these

factors would form a complete chain of circumstances

leading only to the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused

without leaving room for any other hypothesis, is the

question arising herein.

3. We have heard Dr. Rajesh Pandey, learned Senior

Counsel appearing for the accused and Ms. Ankita Sharma,

Advocate-on-Record, appearing for the State. We cannot

but appreciate the Government Advocate for undertaking

the exercise of preparing, for our perusal, a paper-book

containing the entire records, both the vernacular and the

translation. The hearing on the earlier occasion also raised

serious questions as to the custody of the accused, prior to

the arrest in the present crime, which persuaded us to pass

an order on 14.11.2025, directing the State to produce proof,

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if any, of the accused having been taken into custody and

imprisoned between 05.10.2025 to 10.10.2025. An

additional affidavit dated 08.12.2025, filed by the State in

compliance of our order, producing an arrest/Court

surrender memo adds to the confusion, making the truth

regarding the crime, further elusive.

4. On facts suffice it to notice that the accused was living

with his two wives and three children. One of the children

was born to the accused from his first wife and the two

children of his second wife (PW7) were from her previous

marriage with PW17. On 05.10.2018, a quarrel broke out

between the accused and PW7, in which PW7 was

physically assaulted. This prompted her to leave her marital

home and proceed to the home of her parents. PW7 was

admitted to a hospital and on her request, her mother PW2

went to her daughter’s marital home to pick up the

grandchildren. She was, however, informed by the first wife

of the accused that the accused had taken the younger child.

There was no attempt to find out the missing child and a

missing complaint was registered on 11.10.2018 at 13.20 hrs

at Sahaspur Lohara Police Station in District Kabirdhan.

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Later, allegedly on the confession statement of the accused

under Section 27 of the Evidence Act, on 13.10.2018, the

accused is said to have led the police party to a field from

where some burnt bones and ashes were recovered and

from a nearby canal a skull and some bones, covered in a

green saree were recovered.

5. PW1, the doctor before whom the bone remnants were

produced, suggested a chemical examination of the

remains, which was carried out under the supervision of

PW18, the Senior Scientific Officer. The FSL report marked

as Annexure P21A indicated that the DNA profile of the

sample taken from PW7 and PW17, the biological parents of

the deceased child, matched with the DNA profiles of the

vertebrae and teeth recovered from the canal; the skull

having not matched, on analysis. PW8, a neighbor of the

accused was also examined to show that the accused had

taken the child from the house on a motor bike allegedly

establishing the last seen together theory. Thus, the

circumstances, of the recovery made, the last seen together

theory projected and the matching of the DNA profiles, led

to the conviction of the accused.

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6. Learned Senior Counsel for the accused on the

previous hearing date specifically argued that on

05.10.2018, alleging an assault on PW7 an FIR was

registered which led to the arrest of the accused on

05.10.2018 itself, after which he was released from judicial

custody only on 08.10.2018. We have looked at the

additional affidavit filed, which indicates that the accused

was arrested on 06.10.2018 and remanded to judicial

custody by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate; the accused

having been released from the District Jail, Kabirdham on

08.10.2018 as per the bail order of the Sub-Divisional

Magistrate. Having gone through Annexure 2, the

Arrest/Court Surrender Memo produced along with the

affidavit, we have serious doubts on when the arrest

occurred. There is clear interpolation in the date and though

at column No. 8, of the FIR, the arrest is shown to have been

carried out on 06.10.2018 at 13.40 hrs, in Column No.2 the

date and time have been changed from 05.10.2018 and

12.40 to 06 or 08.10.2018 and 13.40. The interpolation on the

date is very clear from the documents produced which

raises a reasonable doubt as to the arrest of the accused,

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which could have been at 12.40 hrs on 05.10.2018, seriously

hampering the last seen theory as projected by the

prosecution. Be that as it may, we will first examine the

evidence led at the trial keeping in mind the principle that

every faulty investigation will not inure to the benefit of the

accused unless serious prejudice is caused thereby and the

evidence led is not sufficient to arrive at a finding of guilt,

unequivocally.

7. PW2, mother-in-law of the accused spoke about the

quarrel between her daughter and the accused and her

daughter’s admission to the hospital for treatment. She also

deposed that she had gone to the house of the accused

along with the police, to fetch the grandchildren, when the

first wife of the accused informed her that the accused had

taken away the second child. Pertinently we have to

observe that in chief-examination there is no date

mentioned and the whereabouts of the first child of her

daughter, who also was staying along with the accused, has

not at all been disclosed. PW10, the husband of PW2, who

accompanied her to the house of the accused fully

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corroborated the version of PW2 but again without any date

mentioned and also the whereabouts of the first child.

8. In any event, even going by the version of the State,

the accused was arrested on 06.10.2018 and released only

on 08.10.2018. This has been fully corroborated by PW15,

the I.O who spoke of the arrest of the accused on 06.10.2018,

his remand and later release on 08.10.2018. The last seen

theory as projected through PW8 indicates that the child

was taken away by the accused, in which circumstance, the

crime ought to have occurred on 05.10.2018 or before the

arrest of the accused on 06.10.2018. Despite the child

having not been found, PW2, PW7 and PW10 did not

register any case of missing, and an FIR was first registered

on 11.10.2018, when PW7 along with the accused came to

the Police Station and registered an FIR regarding the

missing child. This assumes relevance especially since the

incident of assault was reported to the police, who

accompanied PW2 to the house of the accused on the same

day, when they were told that the child went with the

accused.

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9. The accused having been arrested, even accepting

the version of the Police, on 06.10.2018, it is strange that no

enquiries were made about the missing child. Further the

missing complaint is said to have been registered much

later on 11.10.2018. The First Information Statement (FIS) by

the Sub-Inspector of Sahaspur Lohara Police Station is on

information supplied by PW2 who was accompanied by her

husband. The oral report spoken of in the FIS was that the

six-year-old child went missing at 09.00 P.M. on 06.10.2018,

obviously after the accused was arrested. These aspects as

borne out from the records puts to peril the prosecution

story of the last seen together theory as projected through

PW8. PW8 a neighbor of the accused also deposed before

Court that she volunteered this information to the Police,

seven days after 05.10.2018; when already the said aspect

was known to the mother and grandparents of the deceased

child as also the Police, by virtue of the information supplied

by the first wife of the accused on 05.10.2018 itself. The last

seen together theory hence fails miserably.

10. Now we come to the recovery allegedly made under

Section 27, which is also fraught with inconsistencies as we

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would presently indicate. The memorandum under Section

27 of the Evidence Act produced as Ex. P4 indicates the

same having been drawn up on 13.10.2018 at 10.30 A.M. The

only admissible portion in the said memorandum is : ‘I will

show you the place... where her bones and ashes are and the

place where her skull and bones were..’(sic). The police were

led by the accused first to a field from where bones with

ashes were recovered at 10.55 A.M evidenced by Property

Seizure Memo Ex.P5. The canal was searched by three

fishermen PW 3 to PW 5 who recovered the skull with 8

numbers of tooth of the upper jaw and a piece of bone

wrapped in a green color saree, all of which showed

evidence of burning as indicated in Ex.P3 Property Seizure

Memo at 13.00 on 13.10.2018. Though the recoveries as per

Exts. P3 & P5 Memos were made, in accordance with the

confession statement of the accused, Ext. P4 at 10.30 on

13.10.2018, the Arrest/Court Surrender Memo produced at

Ex.P27, indicates the arrest of the accused having been

made on 13.10.2018 at 22.00 hrs. Section 27 of the Evidence

Act clearly speaks of information received from a person

accused of any offence while in the custody of the police

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leading to a discovery of a fact being enabled of proof in the

trial. The accused at the time of the statement was not in the

custody of the police and hence it is removed from the ambit

of Section 27.

11. Section 27, as has been held in Jaffar Hussain

Dastagir v. State of Maharashtra

1

, is in effect a proviso to

Section 26 which makes admissible so much of the statement

of the accused deposed to by him, leading to the discovery

of the fact deposed and connected with the crime,

irrespective of the question whether it is confessional or

otherwise. The essential ingredient of the provision is that

the information given by the accused must lead to the

discovery of a fact which is the direct outcome of such

information. Secondly only such portion of the information

given as is distinctly connected with the said recovery is

admissible against the accused. Thirdly, the discovery of

the fact must relate to the commission of the offence alleged.

12. A similar situation, as in this case arose before the

Calcutta High Court in Durlav Namasudra v. Emperor

2

wherein the information which led to the discovery of the

1

(1969) 2 SCC 872

2

1931 SCC Online Cal 146

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dead body had been given by the accused before they were

taken into custody. It was held that Section 27 controls

Section 24 to 26 and the first thing that is to be ascertained

before its application is whether the information came from

a person who was in the custody of the police. It was held

that if information came from a person who was not in the

custody of the police, then it cannot be brought under

Section 27. The Chief Justice passed a concurring judgment

but expressed anguish insofar as Section 27 permitted

reliance on a statement made to the police which leads to

the discovery of a fact, only when the person who gave the

information is in custody, which was also observed to be

absurd in terms. However, it was also held that till the

legislature takes the matter in hand and redrafts the

provision, the paradox expressed would continue to be law.

13. The position is somewhat clarified in Dharam Deo

Yadav v. State of Uttar Pradesh

3, which dealt with the

murder of a foreign national by a tourist guide. The I.O

having received information that the guide was arriving by

a train rushed to the railway station and intercepted him in

3

(2014) 5 SCC 509

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the platform. On interrogation it was confessed by the

accused that he had murdered the victim and the dead body

was buried in his house. The I.O thus was led to the house of

the accused from where the accused dug up the skeleton

which later was proved to be of the victim. It was held that

the expression ‘custody’ appearing in Section 27 does not

mean formal custody and includes any kind of surveillance,

restriction or restraint by the police. It was held, relying on

State of A.P. v. Gangula Satya Murthy

4 that even if there is

no formal arrest made, if a person is within the ken of

surveillance of the police, during which his movements are

restricted, then it can be regarded as custodial surveillance.

It was also held by this Court that even if the recovery of the

skeleton was not in terms of Section 27, on the premise that

the accused was not in the custody of the police while the

statement was made, it would be admissible as ‘conduct

under Section 8 of the Act’. In that case there was absolutely

no explanation by the accused for the skeleton found buried

in his own house.

4

(1997) 1 SCC 272

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14. In the present case, the FIR was registered on

11.10.2018 at 13.20 hours and the so-called Section 27

statement was recorded at 10.30 on 13.10.2018, after which

the recoveries were made and the arrest carried out later in

the night of the 13

th

. There is nothing indicated to show that

the accused, who had accompanied his wife to register the

missing complaint was even suspected of being responsible

for the missing of the child. In any event, this does not pose

any difficulty insofar as the deposition of the I.O, PW 15; that

he was led to the field and the canal from where the

recovery was made, subsequent to which the person was

arrested, though not admissible under Section 27, all the

same can be brought under Section 8 of the Evidence Act.

15. Apposite also would be a reference to Ramkishan

Mithanlal Sharma v. State of Bombay

5. The charge therein

was of commission of dacoity using deadly weapons. The

I.O deposed before Court that on information supplied by

the first accused, he reached the location where he asked

one Bali Ram to dig out a tin box from the mud floor of a

house pointed out by the first accused leading to recovery

5

(1954) 2 SCC 516

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of three revolvers and live cartridges. Since the I.O did not

depose on the specific information passed on by the first

accused, it was held that the operation of Section 27 though

not attracted, prima facie there was nothing to prevent that

evidence being admitted against the first accused. We

extract herewith paragraph 33 of the cited decision:

“33. The evidence of the police officer would no

doubt go to show that the accused knew of the

existence of the fact discovered in consequence of

information given by him. But that would not

necessarily show his direct connection with the

offence. It would merely be a link in the chain of

evidence which taken along with other pieces of

evidence might go to establish his connection

therewith. This circumstance would therefore be

quite innocuous, and evidence could certainly be

given of that circumstance without attracting the

operation of Section 27.”

[underlining by us for emphasis]

Hence, we are persuaded to accept the recovery of the

bone remnants having been made at the instance of the

accused, though at the time of his statement, he was not in

police custody, which could only be a link under Section 8

of the Evidence Act, in the chain of circumstances; but his

connection with the crime still has to be proved otherwise.

16. The next circumstance projected by the prosecution is

the matching of the DNA profiles of the bone remnants with

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the DNA profiles of the biological parents of the deceased

child. We have to specifically notice that the DNA profiles

matched only with the piece of vertebrae and the teeth

recovered from the canal, while the skull and those

recovered from the field, where the body is said to have

been burnt, did not match with the samples taken from the

parents. In this context, we also have to notice that the bones

recovered were wrapped in a green saree of PW7, which

was not attempted to be identified as belonging to her, by

confronting the same to the witness, while she was in the

box.

17. The learned Senior Counsel for the accused also

argued that the matching of the DNA samples was not put to

the accused in the Section 313 questioning. PW18 was the

Scientific Officer who spoke of the samples having matched

with the DNA profiles of the bone and teeth remnants taken

from the canal. Question No. 157 specifically was with

respect to the blood samples of the mother and father of the

deceased having been marked as C1 and C2. Question No.

158 spoke of Ex.A (specifically A-02) and Ex.B DNA profiles

and that the alleles were found matching with the DNA

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profile of Ex.C. Question No. 159 specifically informed the

accused of the vertebrae having been marked as A2 and

subjected to DNA testing. We are of the opinion that

question numbers 157 to 159 informed the accused about

the matching of the DNA profiles which was responded to

by a bland denial.

18. As of now, we are faced with only two circumstances,

the knowledge of the accused regarding the place from

which the bone remnants of the child were recovered and

the matching of some of it with the DNA profiles of the

biological parents of the child. What has been established

beyond doubt is only the death of the child whose vertebrae

and teeth, recovered from a canal, matched with the DNA

profiles obtained from the sample taken from the biological

parents. The knowledge of the accused, which led to the

detection of the bone remnants though not acceptable

under Section 27 would all the same b e acceptable

evidence under Section 8, which by itself is a weak piece of

evidence. The evidence under Section 8 can only offer

corroboration and cannot by itself result in a conviction. The

suspicion regarding the earlier arrest and incarceration of

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the accused also would pose serious difficulty in finding a

hypothesis of guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. The long

gap when there was no complaint made about the missing

child and the factum of none having questioned the accused,

despite the family and police having been told that she went

with the accused tilts the scales in favour of the accused;

especially since he was released on 08.10.2018, two days

before the FIR was lodged. Pertinent also is that since the

corpus delicti was not recovered, there is no time of death

specified. We are hence unable to uphold the conviction of

the accused, and he has to be necessarily given the benefit

of doubt.

19. The Appeal is allowed. The order of the Trial Court

convicting the accused and that of the High Court affirming

the same are set aside. The accused shall be released

forthwith, if not wanted in any other case.

20. Before we leave the matter, we cannot but record our

appreciation for the meticulous preparation of the learned

Government Advocate who, with astute vigor addressed

arguments despite the major pitfalls in investigation. We

cannot but observe that if the investigation had been half as

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good as the preparation of the State Counsel, the shroud of

mystery over the poor child’s disappearance and death,

could have been unravelled. We also appreciate the efforts

put in by the learned Senior Counsel for the appellant, in

probing the State to effectively bring forth the inept

handling of the investigation.

21. Pending applications, if any, shall stand disposed of.

……...…….……………………. J.

(SANJAY KUMAR)

...………… .……………………. J.

(K. VINOD CHANDRAN )

NEW DELHI;

FEBRUARY 17, 2026.