SC Acquits Child Murder Convict After 16 Years in Jail Over ‘Missing Links’

Case Title: SAHAB SINGH ALIAS SAT PAL VERSUS STATE OF HARYANA

Case No.: CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 4158 OF 2026

Coram:  Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva

Court Observation

“…the presence of the accused at the spot of incident at the relevant time is sought to be established by mere presence of an open packet of namkeen which, in the evidence of the prosecution has been established, is a packet which is readily available and sold in thousands all over the village. The prosecution has failed to establish a connection between the packet of namkeen recovered from the spot and the accused. It may be noticed that the theory of the prosecution of the last seen has been propounded to corroborate the alleged extra judicial confession. There is no plausible explanation of the prosecution as to why the accused would make an extra judicial confession to the Sarpanch of the village with whom neither he nor the victim had any connection.”

“Extra judicial confession is a weak piece of evidence and per se without any independent and cogent corroborative circumstance or evidence cannot be make the sole basis for conviction. Wherever the court, upon due appreciation of the entire prosecution evidence, intends to base a conviction on an extra-judicial confession, it must ensure that the same inspires confidence and is corroborated by other prosecution evidence. If, however, the extra-judicial confession suffers from material discrepancies or inherent improbabilities and does not appear to be cogent as per the prosecution version, it may be difficult for the court to base a conviction on such a confession. In such circumstances, the court would be fully justified in ruling such evidence out of consideration.”

“…there are several missing links in the chain of the prosecution case which, in our view, do not establish beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was the person who committed the offence. Since, in our view, prosecution has failed to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, the benefit of the same has to be given to the accused.”

SC Acquits Child Murder Convict After 16 Years in Jail Over ‘Missing Links’