A missing body is not a missing murder. The Supreme Court ruled that a defendant could be convicted of murder even if the victim’s body was never found, saying the law required proof of the commission of a crime – not the production of a body, and warned that any such requirement would allow killers who successfully disposed of the body to evade justice.
The ruling came as a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prasanna P Varali upheld the life imprisonment sentence of an Assam man convicted of murdering a 10-year-old adopted girl whose body was allegedly thrown into the river and could never be traced.
The court upheld the concurrent findings of the trial court and the Guwahati High Court, ruling that the prosecution had proven the crime through reliable evidence despite the absence of the body.
The court said in its ruling issued today, Wednesday, that “a person can be convicted of killing another person even if his body has not been recovered,” explaining that “the body of the crime means that the crime was committed, and not the recovery of the body of the murdered person.”
The ruling came in an appeal filed by Dipojit Pankika of Assam, who had challenged his conviction under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code in a 2015 case. The prosecution case was that the deceased child, who was living with the appellant and his mother – the girl’s aunt, after his adoption, disappeared after the mother left home for medical treatment, leaving the child in the exclusive care of the appellant.
The prosecution relied primarily on the testimony of a witness who stated that the appellant admitted that the child caught fire after he was accused of stealing. $40 They then forced him, at knifepoint, to help transport the body, wrapped in a bag, towards the Teok River for disposal. Despite repeated efforts, the investigating agency failed to recover the body from the river.
The Supreme Court rejected the defense’s argument that the failure to recover the body fatally undermined the prosecution’s case, and said the case fell squarely within the category governed by the “body of crime” doctrine. He explained that this principle consists of two elements in a murder case – proving death and proving that the death resulted from a criminal act committed by another person. While one can be proven directly, the other can be proven through circumstantial evidence.
The court referred to previous decisions that insisting on the recovery of the body as an absolute prerequisite would allow perpetrators who succeeded in disposing of the body to escape punishment. The court said that what the law requires is “reliable and admissible evidence” proving the fact of death and the commission of the crime of murder, whether through direct or circumstantial evidence.
The bench also found the testimony of the main prosecution witness reliable despite allegations of prior enmity with the accused. The witness has consistently maintained that he was threatened with a dagger and forced to accompany the appellant while the body was tied in a bag carried on a bicycle. The court noted that the fact that he did not falsely claim to have witnessed the actual murder enhanced rather than diminished his credibility.
An additional incriminating circumstance, according to the panel, was the appellant’s complete failure to explain the disappearance of the child for 22 days, even though she had been left exclusively in his custody. The court indicated that the appellant admitted that the child lived with him and that his mother adopted her, but he did not inform the police or alert her relatives after her disappearance. She said such behavior was inconsistent with normal human behavior and provided another vital link in the chain of circumstances.
The Supreme Court found no error in the appreciation of the evidence by the courts below, upheld the life sentence for murder and the seven-year sentence for causing the evidence to disappear, and dismissed the appeal.
