Punjab and Haryana HC Acquits Double-Murder Convicts After Finding Last-Seen Evidence Uncorroborated and FIR Delay Unexplained

The High Court set aside life sentences awarded to two convicts in a 2006 double strangulation case, finding the prosecution's last-seen witnesses unreliable and the circumstantial chain incomplete.

A Division Bench of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh, comprising Justice Rajesh Bhardwaj and Justice Deepak Manchanda, on 7 July 2026 set aside the conviction and life sentences imposed on Kitabo and Lokesh — daughter-in-law and grandson of the family into which deceased Prem Lata had married — for the strangulation murders of Prem Lata and her eleven-year-old son Vimal @ Poppy in the intervening night of 5 and 6 November 2006. The Additional Sessions Judge, Panipat had convicted all three surviving accused under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC and sentenced them to life imprisonment in November 2008. The court found that the prosecution had rested its case on two witnesses described as last-seen witnesses whose presence at the scene was itself unproved, that no corroborating evidence existed, and that the delay in registering the FIR cast a serious doubt on the entire case.

The Murders at Village Manana and the Trial Below

The complainant, Surender (PW-1), was the brother of Prem Lata. According to the FIR, Prem Lata had been living apart from her husband Krishan for some years because of matrimonial differences, during which time she had returned to her parental home in village Khanpur Kalan with her son Vimal @ Poppy, aged about eleven to eleven-and-a-half years. A divorce petition was pending. About two months before the incident, a compromise was reached and Prem Lata went back to the matrimonial home in village Manana.

On 5 November 2006, Prem Lata telephoned Surender through the mobile phone of a cousin, Kuldeep, complaining of harassment. Surender and his cousin Baljit went to village Manana and tried to settle the dispute, but the husband's family refused to listen. They stayed the night in the upper storey of the house. At 2:00 a.m., Surender said he woke up to some noise, looked down and saw Krishan, Braham Dutt, Kitabo and Lokesh leaving the house. When Surender and Baljit came downstairs, they found Prem Lata and Vimal @ Poppy dead, both having been strangulated with a chunni.

The ruqa (Ex. PA, DDR No. 8) was sent on 6 November 2006, and the FIR (Ex. PK) was registered at 10:00 a.m. that day. The police station was about four kilometres from the place of occurrence. A challan was filed against four accused: Krishan, Braham Dutt, Kitabo and Lokesh. During the trial, Krishan died in jail; charges therefore proceeded against the remaining three. The trial court examined eight prosecution witnesses and received a set of documentary exhibits including post-mortem reports, inquest reports, disclosure statements, site plans and photographs. The defence examined four witnesses, including press reporters and the SDM, Karnal, and produced newspaper reports dated 7 November 2006 and a certified copy of a report submitted by the SDM.

On conclusion of trial, the Additional Sessions Judge, Panipat convicted Braham Dutt, Kitabo and Lokesh under Section 302/34 IPC on 14 November 2008 and sentenced them to life imprisonment on 17 November 2008. All three appealed. During the pendency of the appeal, Braham Dutt (appellant No. 1) died and the appeal against him abated. The appeal therefore survived only in respect of Kitabo and Lokesh.

What the Appellants Argued

Senior Counsel for the appellants pressed several points before the Division Bench. The first concerned presence: both PW-1 and PW-2 had been put forward as last-seen witnesses, but their actual presence at village Manana on the night in question was unproved. PW-1, a serving Haryana Police employee, had not produced any official record — such as leave records from his place of posting — to establish that he was in village Manana at the relevant time.

The second point concerned the position of the appellants. Kitabo was the jethani (husband's elder brother's wife) of deceased Prem Lata, and Lokesh was Kitabo's son. Their house, as admitted in cross-examination of PW-1, was situated outside the village, separate from the matrimonial home of Prem Lata. Braham Dutt, the third accused who died during the appeal, was employed in the Army and maintained a separate residential house. The defence argued that none of the appellants had any occasion to be at the matrimonial house in the middle of the night, and none had any motive: the matrimonial dispute was between Krishan and Prem Lata alone.

The third point was the FIR delay. The police station was four kilometres away. The occurrence allegedly happened at 2:00 a.m. Yet the FIR was registered at 10:00 a.m., several hours later, with no explanation for the gap. The inquest reports bore no time of preparation. Senior Counsel argued that this delay demonstrated the witnesses were never present and that the FIR was registered with a fabricated version.

PW-2 Baljit had deposed in examination-in-chief that five or six persons had gone together to village Manana; the rest returned, and only Surender and Baljit stayed back. Senior Counsel identified material contradictions between the depositions of PW-1 and PW-2 on this point and contended that they shook the credibility of both witnesses.

The State countered that PW-1 and PW-2 had duly supported the prosecution case, that any contradictions were not material, that PW-1 had deposed he was on leave during those days, and that the appellants had together with Krishan been harassing the deceased from the beginning and committed the murders with common intention. The State urged that the trial court's conviction suffered from no legal infirmity and the appeal should be dismissed.

The Court's Reasoning on Circumstantial Evidence and Last-Seen Theory

The Division Bench began its analysis by categorising the prosecution case as one based on circumstantial evidence, not direct eye-witness testimony. PW-1 and PW-2 had seen the accused leaving the house; they did not witness the act of strangulation. The bench set out the governing legal framework from two lines of Supreme Court authority.

From Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, (1984) 4 SCC 116, the bench extracted what it called the “panchsheel of the proof of a case based on circumstantial evidence” — five conditions that must all be met: the incriminating circumstances must be fully established; they must be consistent only with the hypothesis of guilt; they must be of a conclusive nature; they must exclude every other hypothesis; and there must be a complete chain of evidence leaving no reasonable ground consistent with innocence. The bench noted the Supreme Court's emphasis in that judgment on the “mental distance between ‘may be’ and ‘must be’” as separating conjecture from sure conclusion.

From Ramanand @ Nandlal Bharti v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2022 AIR Supreme Court 5273, the bench reiterated that in circumstantial evidence cases, the judgment is essentially inferential, that circumstances must unerringly point to guilt, and that when taken cumulatively they must lead to the irresistible conclusion that the accused alone committed the crime.

Turning to the last-seen theory specifically, the bench applied Bodh Raj @ Bodha and Others v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, (2002) 8 SCC 45, which holds that the theory operates only where the time gap between the last sighting and the discovery of the body is so small that no other person could have intervened. Where a long gap exists and the possibility of other persons coming in between cannot be excluded, it is hazardous to convict on last-seen alone. The bench also drew on Nizam and Another v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 2015 SC (Criminal) 1705, which holds that it is not prudent to base conviction solely on last-seen theory and that it must be considered in the context of the prosecution case in its entirety.

Applying these tests, the court identified several specific deficiencies. First, the presence of PW-1 at village Manana was not backed by any official record despite his being a police employee; no leave record was produced. Second, PW-2's deposition that a group of five to six people had gone to village Manana, with the rest returning and only the two witnesses staying back, was internally inconsistent with PW-1's account and raised doubt about whether either of them was actually present. Third, the house of the appellants was, on PW-1's own admission in cross-examination, located outside the village and separate from the matrimonial home: there was no reason for them to have been there at 2:00 a.m. Fourth, the admitted motive related to the matrimonial dispute between Krishan and Prem Lata, not to the appellants. Fifth, the delay of several hours in registering the FIR despite the police station being only four kilometres away, with no explanation offered, seriously undermined the prosecution case. Sixth, there was no other evidence to corroborate the last-seen testimony of PW-1 and PW-2.

The court concluded that the chain of circumstances was not complete and that the prosecution had failed to bring its case within the five-fold test required for a conviction resting on circumstantial evidence. The benefit of doubt, on the settled principle that the accused must be guilty and not merely may be guilty, therefore went to the appellants.

Outcome

The Division Bench allowed the appeal. The judgment of conviction dated 14 November 2008 and the order of sentence dated 17 November 2008 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Panipat, were set aside. Kitabo and Lokesh were acquitted of all charges framed against them. The appeal against Braham Dutt (appellant No. 1) had already abated on account of his death during the pendency of the appeal. The order was marked as a speaking and reasoned judgment and as reportable.