A WhatsApp message its sender denied sending cannot carry a murder conviction, the Supreme Court holds

Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi acquitted a Chhattisgarh man convicted of murder, holding that a recovered message of unknown authorship raises only suspicion and the recoveries were never linked to the deceased.

In the early hours of 8 February 2019, a string of WhatsApp messages went from one man's phone to another's. They said "Kusum" had left the victim bleeding in his own home and that he appeared to have been badly beaten. The messages were later deleted and recovered by the cyber cell. The trial court treated them as proof that a fight had taken place and convicted Kusumlal Sao of murder, and the Chhattisgarh High Court affirmed. In court, however, the man said to have sent the messages denied sending them, and the man who received them said he knew nothing about the incident. On 13 October 2026 the Supreme Court acquitted Sao. Justice Manoj Misra, writing for himself and Justice Vijay Bishnoi, held that with the author unidentified and the basis of his knowledge unknown, the messages created at most a suspicion, and suspicion cannot sustain a conviction.

A body in a field, a motorcycle and a yellow rope

On the morning of 9 February 2019, villagers found Saurabh Panda dead in an open field, with a motorcycle and a yellow rope beside him. It was first reported as an accidental death. The inquest and post-mortem raised suspicion of homicide, and a first information report was registered against unknown persons. Investigators seized two phones and found the deleted messages sent between 2:37 and 2:57 a.m. on 8 February. Sao was arrested. On the basis of his disclosure statement, police said they seized an iron rod and a screwdriver from his house, along with a blood-stained shirt and blood-stained soil.

The prosecution examined 26 witnesses and relied on three circumstances: a fight in Sao's house on the night of 7 February, overheard by the sender and reported in the messages; a confession made in the presence of two witnesses that he had killed the deceased, tied the body to a motorcycle and dumped it; and the recoveries. The trial court convicted him under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code on 30 March 2024 and acquitted a co-accused of criminal intimidation. Relying on the forensic report, which found human blood on the iron rod and the deceased's clothes, it held the case proved.

The witnesses who did not support the prosecution

The deceased's mother said he went for a walk at about 5 p.m. on 7 February, saying he would be back by 9.30, and did not return. She did not say he was with Sao. His father said he last spoke to his son on the phone at 1 a.m., after which the phone was switched off. Both parents admitted in cross-examination that there was no dispute or enmity between Sao and their son.

The alleged sender of the messages denied knowing anything about the incident and denied sending any message. The recipient also said he knew nothing. After being declared hostile, he admitted receiving a message between 7 and 8 a.m. on 8 February. A co-villager denied knowing that the deceased had visited Sao's house. Sao's two sons said their father and the deceased were good friends who visited each other, but both denied that the deceased came to the house that night. Both were declared hostile and denied the statements attributed to them during the investigation.

What the message could and could not prove

The Court began from the settled test for circumstantial evidence in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda: each circumstance must be fully established, the circumstances must point unerringly to guilt, together they must form a chain so complete that no other conclusion is possible, and they must exclude every hypothesis other than guilt. It also cited Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade: the accused “must be” and not merely “may be” guilty, and the distance between the two separates vague conjecture from sure conclusion.

There was no evidence that the deceased was last seen alive with Sao. Every witness called to place him in Sao's house that night had turned hostile. That left the messages and the recoveries.

The prosecution argued that the messages were relevant under Sections 6, 7 and 8 of the Evidence Act, as part of the same transaction, as facts showing the occasion of the crime, and as conduct. The Court held that whether a message rested on the sender's personal knowledge, on hearsay or on assumption could only be established through his testimony in court. Both the alleged sender and the recipient said they had not witnessed anything, and the alleged sender said he had not sent the messages. Who wrote them, and whether the writer knew what he wrote or had only heard it, were questions with no answer. The messages therefore did not prove that the deceased was in Sao's house that night or that Sao assaulted him.

Recoveries never tied to the deceased

The recoveries fared no better. The investigating officer said blood-stained soil was seized from a room in Sao's house. One of the two seizure witnesses said soil was collected only from the spot where the body lay, that he did not go to the house, that police brought the rod to him saying it came from the house, and that no clothes were recovered in his presence. The other witness said soil was taken from the house. The Court held that this conflict did not help the prosecution. No DNA profile of the blood was taken to compare with the deceased's, so neither the soil nor the rod nor the screwdriver could be connected to him.

Two further features weighed against the conviction. The body was found in a field with the deceased's motorcycle beside it, and while the autopsy surgeon called the injuries homicidal, he did not rule out a road accident caused by a fall from the motorcycle. The deceased was also habituated to substance abuse, which the Court said made the defence of an accident probable enough to create doubt. Sao's own injuries, found on medical examination on 11 February, might have mattered if a fight shortly before the death had been proved, but no witness said there had been one. The only evidence of a fight was the message.

Order

The Court held that there was hardly any evidence on which the conviction could be sustained. It allowed the appeal, set aside the judgments of the High Court and the trial court, and acquitted Sao of all charges. He is to be released forthwith unless required in another case. Mr Yasharth Kant appeared for the appellant.