Supreme Court Upholds Murder Conviction Where Suicide Note Was Found to Be Forced and Jewellery Was Missing
A Division Bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B. Varale dismissed the appeal, holding that a complete chain of circumstantial evidence pointed unerringly to the husband's guilt.
The Supreme Court on 21 May 2026 dismissed the criminal appeal of Chetan Dashrath Gade, a Nashik resident convicted of murdering his wife Rupali inside their matrimonial home on 23 August 2015. The Court, comprising Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Prasanna B. Varale, found no perversity or miscarriage of justice in the concurrent findings of the Additional Sessions Judge, Nashik and the Bombay High Court. Both courts had held the death to be homicidal by strangulation, not suicide. The Supreme Court applied the five-principle test from Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra and concluded that the chain of circumstances, missing ornaments, post-mortem findings, a forced suicide note, and the appellant's unexplained conduct was complete and unbroken. The appeal was dismissed and the life sentence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 was upheld.
How the Case Reached the Supreme Court
Rupali, daughter of Babasaheb Kumbharkar (P.W.1), married Chetan Dashrath Gade on 24 April 2012. The couple lived in the matrimonial home at Shindwad along with Chetan's parents and his younger brother Akshay. Rupali had suffered an intrauterine foetal death in June 2013 but gave birth to a baby boy in March 2015. The boy was six months old at the time of her death.
On 23 August 2015, P.W.1 telephoned his father-in-law Dashrath to say he would come to fetch Rupali for Raksha Bandhan. At around 1.30 pm, Akshay called P.W.1 to say Rupali was dead. Dashrath separately went to Vani Police Station and reported that Chetan had told him Rupali had attempted suicide by hanging and was being taken to a doctor. Rupali was declared dead at Vani Hospital.
P.W.1 reached the hospital and observed a fresh injury mark on the right side of Rupali's cheek and a ligature mark on her neck. He also found that her left earring, right leg anklet, and toe rings were missing. He lodged a complaint at Vani Police Station, leading to registration of Crime No. 99 of 2015. The prosecution examined 12 witnesses at trial.
The Trial Court convicted Chetan (accused no. 1) and Akshay (accused no. 3) under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC, sentencing them to life imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 1,000. All accused were acquitted of charges under Sections 498-A and 304-B IPC, the court finding the prosecution had not established cruelty or a dowry demand to the required standard.
In appeal before the Bombay High Court, the Division Bench partly allowed the appeal by acquitting Akshay of murder but affirmed Chetan's conviction under Section 302 IPC. The High Court convicted accused no. 2 under Section 201 IPC and sentenced him to three years' rigorous imprisonment. Chetan then filed Criminal Appeal No. 1063 of 2021 before the Supreme Court.
Arguments Before the Supreme Court
Senior counsel for the appellant pressed three main points. First, there was no eyewitness to the incident and no established motive. Second, the medical experts gave inconsistent opinions, one indicating hanging, another indicating both hanging and strangulation, making the cause of death doubtful and entitling the accused to the benefit of doubt. Third, a suicide note was recovered and a handwriting expert confirmed it was in Rupali's handwriting, indicating that no one was responsible for her death.
Counsel for the State of Maharashtra countered that the Sessions Court and the High Court had both examined the evidence and returned concurrent findings of guilt. Such findings, it was submitted, should not be disturbed under Article 136 of the Constitution. The post-mortem findings, fracture of the larynx and trachea, and asphyxia, pointed to strangulation rather than suicide. The suicide note, the State argued, was suspected to have been planted or was not recovered in the normal course, as noted in the High Court's findings. The death occurred inside the matrimonial home, placing a strong burden on the accused to explain.
Medical Evidence and the Missing Ornaments
The Court examined the testimony of five medical officers examined by the prosecution. P.W.6, Dr. Amol, was running Mauli Clinic. On 23 August 2015 at about 12.45 pm, Akshay Gade brought Rupali to the clinic. Dr. Amol found her in the back of a four-wheeler, already dead, with dilated pupils, no pulse, and a scar on her neck. He advised the persons present including the appellant Chetan, to take her to a civil hospital. Instead, the body was taken to Radhekishan Hospital, where P.W.9 Dr. Swapnil Mahajan also found her dead at 1.30 pm.
The post-mortem was conducted by Dr. G.K. Gore (P.W.11). His findings included three ligature marks on the neck, a bruise mark on the left side of the mandible, fracture of the hyoid bone, fracture of the trachea, congested lungs, and sub-conjunctival haemorrhage. The probable cause of death was recorded as “asphyxia due to strangulation.”
The Court noted that both the Trial Court and the High Court had relied on the missing ornaments as a significant circumstance. The left earring, right leg anklet, and toe rings were absent from the body. The courts below had reasoned that in a case of hanging, the chance of such articles going missing is very remote, and their absence was a strong indicator of strangulation. The fresh injury on Rupali's cheek was an additional circumstance supported by medical evidence.
On the suicide note, the Trial Court had found, on appreciation of the handwriting expert's opinion, that the note had been written by Rupali under compulsion before the strangulation. The Supreme Court accepted this finding. The appellant had offered no satisfactory explanation either for the injury marks or for the decision to take the body to a second private hospital after P.W.6 had already declared Rupali dead.
The Legal Framework Applied
The Court set out the standard for interference with concurrent findings under Article 136. Relying on Mekala Sivaiah v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2022) 8 SCC 253, it held that this Court does not re-appreciate evidence to examine whether concurrent findings of fact are correct. Interference is warranted only in rare and exceptional cases where there is manifest illegality or a grave and serious miscarriage of justice on account of misreading or ignoring material evidence.
For the substantive test on circumstantial evidence, the Court applied the five principles from Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, (1984) 4 SCC 116. Those principles require that the circumstances be fully established, consistent only with the hypothesis of guilt, of a conclusive nature, excluding every other hypothesis, and forming a chain so complete as to leave no reasonable ground for a conclusion consistent with innocence.
On the appellant's failure to explain, the Court invoked Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act. Citing Nagendra Sah v. State of Bihar, (2021) 10 SCC 725, it held that where the prosecution establishes facts from which a reasonable inference can be drawn regarding other facts within the special knowledge of the accused, the accused's failure to offer a proper explanation allows the court to draw an appropriate inference. The Court added that in a case resting on circumstantial evidence, such failure provides an additional link in the chain but only where the chain is otherwise complete.
On the absence of proved motive, the Court relied on Mulakh Raj and Others v. Satish Kumar and Others, (1992) 3 SCC 43, which holds that failure to prove motive is not fatal as a matter of law and does not break the chain of circumstances when the facts are otherwise clear.
The Court's Findings
The Court found that the prosecution had successfully established a complete and unbroken chain of circumstances. The medical evidence pointed to strangulation. The missing ornaments were a strong circumstance against the suicide theory. The fresh cheek injury was consistent with a struggle. The appellant took the body to a second hospital after death had already been declared, without explanation. The suicide note was found to have been written under compulsion. In his statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the appellant offered no satisfactory explanation for any of these circumstances.
The Court held that the Sharad Birdhichand Sarda principles were fully satisfied. It found “no perversity, illegality, or miscarriage of justice” in the appreciation of evidence by the Trial Court as affirmed by the High Court. No grounds existed to exercise jurisdiction under Article 136.
Order
The Supreme Court dismissed Criminal Appeal No. 1063 of 2021. The conviction and sentence under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code, as affirmed by the Bombay High Court, were upheld. The appellant was granted liberty to submit an application for premature release in accordance with the State's policy, and any such application is to be considered by the competent authority under the prevalent policy. Pending applications, if any, were disposed of.