Criminal Trial – Circumstantial evidence –  For bringing home the guilt of the accused, prosecution has to firstly prove negligence and then establish direct nexus between negligence of the accused and the death of the victim –

[SC] Criminal Trial – Circumstantial evidence – No eye witness –  In a case of  Circumstantial evidence there is a risk of jumping to conclusions in haste –  While evaluating such evidence the jury should bear in mind that inference of guilt should be the only reasonable inference from the facts –  For bringing home the guilt of the accused, prosecution has to firstly prove negligence and then establish direct nexus between negligence of the accused and the death of the victim –  Perusal of the record reveals that out of various witnesses arrayed by the prosecution, there are no eye witnesses –  Any evidence brought on record is merely circumstantial in nature –  We are constrained to repeat our observation that it sounds completely preposterous that a telephone wire carried 11KV current without melting on contact and when such current passed through the Television set, it did not blast and melt the wiring of the entire house –  It is even more unbelievable that Appellant no. 2 came in contact with the same voltage and managed to get away with a few abrasions – The Appellants therefore are entitled to be given the benefit of doubt; more so, when there is no report of a technical expert to corroborate the prosecution story – Conviction and sentence set aside – IPC, s. 304A read with S. 34 IPC.

2022 SCeJ 0595 , 2022 PLRonline 1605 (SC) ,