The Supreme Court has cautioned investigators and courts against building criminal cases on public perception or personal bias, warning that such an approach can derail justice by endangering innocent people while allowing the real perpetrator to escape.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran said that overzealous investigations based on assumptions rather than evidence could be as damaging to the criminal justice process as lethargic or delayed probes.
“Overzealous investigation is as fatal to prosecution as are the lethargic and the tardy. Framing a case on public perceptions and personal predilections ends up in a mess, often putting to peril an innocent and always letting free the perpetrator,” the court said in its judgment on Wednesday.
The observation came while the court upheld the acquittal of a man and his wife who had been accused of murdering his parents by setting their house on fire in Bihar in 2016.
The court emphasised the human cost of wrongful prosecution, noting that the trauma of arrest, incarceration and trial can permanently scar those who are later found innocent. “The trauma of arrest, incarceration and trial will always scar the couple and more so their children who were left orphaned during the time when their parents were imprisoned,” the bench held.
Even though the accused were ultimately acquitted, the bench highlighted, the stigma of being accused of killing one’s own parents would likely remain. “A couple, at the fag end of their lives, were burnt to death and the cause, whether homicide or accident, eludes civil society,” said the court, adding that the shadow of suspicion cast on the family would continue to haunt them.
{{/usCountry}}Even though the accused were ultimately acquitted, the bench highlighted, the stigma of being accused of killing one’s own parents would likely remain. “A couple, at the fag end of their lives, were burnt to death and the cause, whether homicide or accident, eludes civil society,” said the court, adding that the shadow of suspicion cast on the family would continue to haunt them.
{{/usCountry}}It further underlined: “When lives are lost or taken and there is a possibility of false accusations being made, investigators and courts must strive to do better and follow accepted practices and procedural rules to the hilt.”
The case concerned the death of an elderly couple whose house was gutted in a fire in the early hours of November 23, 2016. The husband died immediately while his wife succumbed to burn injuries two days later in a Patna hospital. Prosecutors alleged that the younger son and his wife set the hut ablaze due to a longstanding property dispute.
A trial court convicted the couple for murder, but the Patna High Court later acquitted them, finding serious gaps in the prosecution’s case. The Supreme Court has now affirmed that acquittal, holding that the investigation and prosecution were fundamentally flawed.
The state of Bihar was represented by advocate Azmat Hayat Amanullah, while senior advocate Vipin Sanghi, assisted by advocate Vikas Singh Jangra, appeared for the acquitted couple.
The court said the entire case appeared to have been built almost exclusively on the alleged motive of property-related hostility between the father and the son, without establishing a credible chain of evidence linking the accused to the crime. It added that the investigation appeared to have been influenced by village sentiment against the accused.
“The entire village was against the son and the mishap ended in an investigation where truth was sacrificed at the altar of perceived vengeance,” said the court, further noting that the investigating officer’s “selective but careless pursuits” derailed the prosecution.
The bench added that the evidence presented in court failed to meet the strict standard required in criminal trials, where guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. In this case, it said, the circumstances presented by the prosecution did not form a complete chain pointing only to the guilt of the accused. Instead, the record suggested a conscious effort to pin the crime on the son and his wife.
The court also flagged serious lapses in the investigation, including the failure to examine key witnesses recording of the dying declaration, and the absence of basic forensic procedures. According to the judgment, the scene of the fire was not properly documented, no forensic examination was conducted, and several independent witnesses who were present at the scene were never examined in court. Even individuals who allegedly transported the injured woman to the hospital were not produced as witnesses.
The bench noted that the prosecution relied largely on testimonies of “interested witnesses”, many of whom were closely related to the deceased or had a stake in the property dispute. It also pointed out that none of the witnesses could establish the presence of the accused near the crime scene at the time of the incident.
In closing, the Supreme Court urged investigators and trial courts to strictly adhere to established investigative practices and procedural safeguards in criminal cases.