Allahabad High Court Upholds Life Sentence in Hardoi Quadruple Strangulation Case, Finds Unbroken Chain of Circumstantial Evidence
The Lucknow Bench dismisses an appeal against conviction for murdering four family members, holding that last-seen evidence, motive, post-arrest recovery and Section 106 burden cumulatively closed the chain.
The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has dismissed the criminal appeal of Vinay Pratap Singh @ Bablu against his conviction for the strangulation murders of four persons — Smt. Nandrani (65), her daughter Smt. Babita (32), and Babita's two children Kumari Gunjan (7) and Anshu (5) — committed during the intervening night of 23–24 June 2009 in Mohalla Nawabganj, Police Station Sandi, District Hardoi. The Division Bench of Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary, with the judgment authored by Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary, held that the prosecution had fully established a complete and unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence satisfying the five-point test from Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, (1984) 4 SCC 116. The appeal was reserved on 28 April 2026 and decided on 27 July 2026.
The Murders and the Case Before the Trial Court
On 24 June 2009 at about 8:00 AM, complainant Nathulal (P.W.-1), a relative and co-villager of the deceased family, visited the house of Nandrani at Mohalla Nawabganj. He found the dead bodies of Nandrani and her grandson Anshu on a cot in the courtyard, cloth nooses tied around their necks. In the adjacent thatched room, the bodies of Babita and her daughter Kumari Gunjan lay on the floor, similarly bound. All four had been strangulated to death.
Vinay Pratap Singh @ Bablu had been in an intimate live-in relationship with the widowed Babita for approximately one and a half years before the incident. Neighbours had heard a serious quarrel between Bablu and Babita at about 9:00 PM on the preceding night of 23 June 2009. By the following morning, when the bodies were discovered, the appellant was nowhere to be found in the house.
The police apprehended the appellant the same afternoon at Nandlal Shikshan Sansthan Higher Secondary School, Sungwa, where he had taken refuge. On spotting the police party, he fired at them with a country-made 12-bore pistol. After his arrest, one empty cartridge lodged in the barrel and one live cartridge were recovered from him. On his disclosure, a black bag concealed on the school premises was recovered, containing jewellery of the deceased, two mobile phones and a red purse with Rs. 116.
Three separate FIRs were registered at Police Station Sandi: Crime No. 353/2009 under Section 302 IPC and Section 3(2)(5) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (the SC/ST Act); Crime No. 355/2009 under Section 307 IPC; and Crime No. 356/2009 under Section 3/25 of the Arms Act. All three sessions trials — Sessions Trial Nos. 632, 676 and 677 of 2009 — were consolidated and tried together before the Additional Sessions Judge (Special Judge, SC/ST Act), Hardoi.
All four deceased belonged to the Kori community, a Scheduled Caste. The appellant belonged to the Thakur community. The Trial Court, by its judgment dated 2 September 2014, convicted the appellant on all counts: life imprisonment plus a fine of Rs. 20,000 under Section 302 IPC; life imprisonment plus a fine of Rs. 20,000 under Section 3(2)(5) of the SC/ST Act; two years' rigorous imprisonment plus a fine of Rs. 1,000 under Section 404 IPC; eight years' rigorous imprisonment plus a fine of Rs. 5,000 under Section 307 IPC; and two years' rigorous imprisonment plus a fine of Rs. 1,000 under Section 3/25 of the Arms Act. All sentences were directed to run concurrently.
The Appeal and the Appellant's Grounds
Aggrieved, the appellant filed Criminal Appeal No. 1306 of 2014 under Section 374(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. A first bail application filed by the appellant was rejected by a coordinate bench on 27 March 2015. A second bail application was filed in 2024. When the paper book was ready, counsel for the appellant pressed for hearing the appeal on merits rather than the bail application, as the appellant had been in custody since 24 June 2009. The second bail application was accordingly dismissed as not pressed, and the appeal was heard on merits.
Counsel for the appellant raised several grounds. The entire prosecution case, he argued, rested solely on circumstantial evidence with no direct ocular testimony connecting the appellant to the murders. The FIR was lodged by a witness who had not seen the murders and whose account was based on hearsay. The nature of the crime — four persons strangulated in a single night — pointed to multiple assailants, making it improbable that one person alone committed all four murders. Motive had not been independently established; the evidence of P.W.-2 (Malti, Babita's sister) on the proposed court marriage was that of an interested witness. The last-seen circumstance was inherently weak, since P.W.-3 had merely overheard a quarrel and had not seen the appellant inside the house throughout the night. Recovery of jewellery and weapons was challenged for non-association of independent public witnesses and alleged procedural infirmities. The defence pleaded false implication due to a property dispute, noting that P.W.-2 and her family had occupied the deceased's house after the incident.
How the Bench Reasoned Through the Circumstantial Chain
The bench began by restating the five conditions from Sharad Birdhichand Sarda: circumstances must be fully established; facts established must be consistent only with the hypothesis of guilt; circumstances must be conclusive; they must exclude every other hypothesis; and the chain must be so complete as to leave no reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with innocence.
Homicidal death. The bench found no serious challenge to the cause of death. Post-mortem examinations by P.W.-5, Dr. Anil Kumar Srivastava, confirmed asphyxia from ante-mortem ligature strangulation in all four cases. Ligature marks below the thyroid cartilage with underlying ecchymosis, fracture of the hyoid bone and tracheal rings in three of the four victims, and congestion of internal organs collectively ruled out suicide or accident. The bench noted that fracture of the hyoid bone and tracheal rings indicates significant force applied to the neck region, making suicide of any kind untenable.
Single assailant argument. The bench refused to acquit the appellant merely because four persons were killed. It drew a distinction between whether the crime could have been committed by one person and whether the appellant committed it. The victims comprised an elderly woman of 65, two children aged 5 and 7, and one adult woman. The bench reasoned that the murders were committed at night while the victims were asleep; the elderly and children lack physical strength to resist; and there was no sign of struggle from any of the deceased, consistent with vulnerability and shock. The F.I.R. named the appellant and other unknowns, and the investigating agency's failure to charge-sheet others did not automatically entitle the appellant to acquittal.
The FIR challenge. The bench rejected the argument that the FIR, based partly on hearsay, was suspect. It reiterated settled law that an FIR is not a substantive piece of evidence and is not required to be filed by an eyewitness. Citing State of U.P. v. Naresh, (2011) 4 SCC 324, the bench held that an FIR “is not an encyclopaedia of the entire case” and that hearsay is a concept applicable to evidence, not to the lodging of an FIR.
Motive. The bench found motive established through a convergence of evidence. P.W.-2 (Malti) deposed that the appellant had been pressuring Babita to solemnise a court marriage; Babita was reluctant because the appellant was unemployed and dependent on her earnings. The appellant suspected Babita was planning to leave him. These facts caused continuous quarrels. Critically, the appellant himself entered the witness box as D.W.-1 and admitted his intimate physical relationship with Babita, his desire to marry her, and his repeated stays at her residence. The tin name-plate bearing the appellant's name in his capacity as “General Secretary, Human Right Social Animator Task Force,” displayed at Nandrani's house, further corroborated his habitual residence there.
The bench cited G. Parshwanath v. State of Karnataka, (2010) 8 SCC 593, for the proposition that absence of motive does not automatically demolish a prosecution case where other proved circumstances complete the chain. In the present case, motive was in any event established.
Last-seen theory. P.W.-3, Surendra Pal, an independent neighbour with no demonstrated enmity against the appellant, deposed that at about 9:00 PM on 23 June 2009 he witnessed a serious altercation between the appellant and Babita outside her house, and that he did not see the appellant leave thereafter. The dead bodies were discovered at 8:00 AM the next morning. The time gap between 9:00 PM and 8:00 AM in a rural village — where there is no night life and visitors do not call after 9:00 PM — was found to be sufficiently proximate to invoke the last-seen theory with force.
When the appellant was put Question 14 under Section 313 CrPC, confronting him with Surendra Pal's deposition, his answer was: “The statement about the altercation is incorrect. The rest is correct.” The bench treated this as a significant admission of his presence in the house on the fateful night. He offered no explanation as to when he left, where he went, or under what circumstances four people were murdered under the same roof.
Relying on Ram Gopal v. State of M.P., (2023) 5 SCC 534, the bench held that where the last-seen theory is proved in conjunction with proximity of time, the accused owes an explanation under Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act. Failure to furnish any plausible explanation, absconding, establishment of motive, and recovery of incriminating articles together support conviction. The bench also invoked Section 8 of the Indian Evidence Act regarding the relevance of subsequent conduct — the appellant's flight, his failure to approach the police despite being in an intimate relationship with Babita, and his non-participation in the panchayatnama proceedings.
Recovery. P.W.-7 (S.I. Ramesh Chandra Pal) and P.W.-8 (Inspector Yogendra Singh), who led the arresting party, gave consistent evidence about the appellant firing at police, his arrest, and the recovery of the pistol, cartridges and the black bag containing the deceased's jewellery and mobile phones. P.W.-2 (Malti) identified all recovered articles as belonging to the deceased. The bench found no material inconsistency between the inquest reports and the recovery. On the absence of independent public witnesses, it cited Appabhai v. State of Gujarat, 1988 Supp SCC 241, noting that civilian reluctance to participate in police proceedings is a well-recognised reality and cannot alone defeat the prosecution.
Interested versus related witnesses. The bench distinguished between interested witnesses (those with a direct or indirect motive to falsely implicate) and related witnesses (those connected by family ties). Citing Md. Rojali Ali v. State of Assam, (2019) 19 SCC 567, and Masalti v. State of U.P., AIR 1965 SC 202, it held that P.W.-1 and P.W.-2 could not be rejected merely on grounds of relationship, particularly when their testimony found corroboration from the independent P.W.-3, medical evidence, documentary exhibits and the appellant's own admissions as D.W.-1.
Minor inconsistencies. The bench found no material inconsistency in the prosecution evidence capable of undermining the substratum of the case. It referred to its own earlier judgment in Jitendra Pal v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2025 SCC OnLine All 8144, holding that minor variations in timing and sequence are natural given the passage of time and do not amount to material discrepancies.
Defence version. The appellant's plea of false implication due to a property dispute was unsupported by any documentary evidence or independent witnesses. The bench noted that P.W.-2 and her family occupying the house after the incident was not proof of a motive to frame the appellant, particularly since he had failed to produce any material to sustain that allegation. His admission under Section 313 CrPC that he wanted to marry Babita, read alongside P.W.-2's evidence on the disputed marriage and the quarrel, substantially corroborated the prosecution's case on motive.
The SC/ST Act Conviction
The SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 penalises specified offences when committed against members of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes by persons who are not members of such communities. Section 3(2)(5) of the Act as applicable to the case prescribes life imprisonment when an offence punishable under the Indian Penal Code with ten years or more is committed against a Scheduled Caste member. All four deceased belonged to the Kori community (a Scheduled Caste) and the appellant belongs to the Thakur community. The Trial Court's conviction under Section 3(2)(5) was upheld along with the conviction under Section 302 IPC, and the bench did not find any ground to interfere with that finding.
Outcome
The Division Bench dismissed Criminal Appeal No. 1306 of 2014 on 27 July 2026. The convictions and sentences imposed by the Additional Sessions Judge (Special Judge, SC/ST Act), Hardoi by judgment dated 2 September 2014 were upheld in their entirety: life imprisonment under Section 302 IPC and Section 3(2)(5) of the SC/ST Act; eight years' rigorous imprisonment under Section 307 IPC; two years each under Section 404 IPC and Section 3/25 of the Arms Act, all to run concurrently. The bench did not reduce the sentence, noting the gravity of the offences and the fact that four innocent and vulnerable persons had been murdered. No order as to costs was made. The registry was directed to transmit the lower court record along with a certified copy of the judgment to the trial court within two weeks.