Supreme Court – Daily Orders
Vinodbhai Babubhai Parmar vs The State Of Gujarat on 29 July, 2026
Author: Sanjay Karol
Bench: Sanjay Karol
NON-REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1805 OF 2014
VINODBHAI BABUBHAI
PARMAR … APPELLANT(S)
VERSUS
STATE OF GUJARAT … RESPONDENT(S)
ORDER
AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH, J.
1. This appeal, filed by way of special leave granted
vide order dated 19.08.2014, assails the
judgment and order dated 17.09.2013 passed
by the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad in
Criminal Appeal No.1455 of 2008, preferred by
the appellant and two co-accused against their
conviction recorded by the Special Judge
Signature Not Verified
Digitally signed by
RAJNI MUKHI
Date: 2026.08.05
(Atrocity), Himatnagar, Camp at Idar, in Special
16:43:14 IST
Reason:
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 1 of 20
(Atrocity) Case No.13 of 2007 was partly
allowed.
2. The prosecution case was that the deceased,
Kamlesh Maganbhai Vankar, left home on
21.12.2006 to attend a meeting of Sarpanches
at Gambhirpura and did not return. On
enquiry, the appellant and the co-accused who
stated that they were innocent, upon which the
family of the deceased lodged a complaint,
registered as FIR No.151/2006 dated
23.12.2006 at Police Station Idar, Gujarat, on
the statement of the informant, Dineshbhai
Maganbhai Vankar, brother of the deceased. It
was alleged that the appellant (Accused No.1),
along with Bhogilal Ramabhai Vankar (Accused
No.2) and Pravinkumar Dahyabhai Vankar
(Accused No.3), had taken the deceased in a
jeep bearing registration No.GJ-2-AC-2015,
that near a canal in the sim of village Babsar
the appellant inflicted two axe blows on the
head of the deceased, and that the body was
thrown into the canal of the Dharoi dam. The
motive alleged was a suspected illicit
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 2 of 20
relationship between the deceased and one
Gitaben. The body was recovered four days
later, on 24.12.2006, and postmortem was
conducted the same day.
3. Upon investigation and committal, the
appellant and the two co-accused were tried in
Special (Atrocity) Case No.13 of 2007. By
judgment dated 16.04.2008, the Special Judge
(Atrocity) convicted all three accused under
Section 302 read with Section 34, and under
Section 201 read with Section 34, of the Indian
Penal Code, 1860 (hereinafter, “the IPC”), and
sentenced them to imprisonment for life and to
five years’ simple imprisonment, respectively.
The conviction rested on the evidence of the
deceased’s family members as to the
circumstances in which the deceased was last
seen; an alleged extra-judicial confession; the
recovery of the dead body and of the alleged
weapon of offence, an axe; and forensic evidence
of human blood of “A” group the blood group of
the deceased said to have been found on the
jeep and on the axe.
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 3 of 20
4. In appeal, the High Court examined each of
these circumstances afresh. As to the motive, it
found that none of the witnesses had, in fact,
deposed to having seen the deceased or the
accused persons in the house or company of
Gitaben, who herself, when examined, had been
declared hostile. As to the postmortem evidence,
the medical officer’s opinion was that death had
occurred three to four days prior to the
examination, no rigor mortis being present at
that stage; on this material, the High Court held
that it was unable to differ from the trial court’s
finding that the death was homicidal in nature.
5. As to Section 34 IPC and the existence of a
common intention amongst the three accused,
the High Court held that, looking to the totality
of the evidence, there was no pre-planning, no
object, and no common intention amongst the
three accused, and that the conviction under
Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC could not,
on that basis, be sustained.
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 4 of 20
6. As regards the appellant individually, the High
Court proceeded to hold that the chain of last
seen together, along with the evidence of two
witnesses, namely, Kapurji Takhaji Chauhan
(PW-31) and Rameshbhai Shankarbhai Patel
(PW-33), and the report of the Forensic Science
Laboratory, was sufficient to conclude that the
appellant alone was the author of the crime, and
sustained his conviction, altering it to one
under Section 302 IPC simpliciter.
7. As to the presence of the three accused and the
alleged extra-judicial confession, the High Court
held that the confession relied upon by the trial
court had been made in police custody and was
inadmissible under Section 25 of the Indian
Evidence Act, 1872, that there was some
uncertainty as to the timing of death, and that
the panch witnesses had not, in evidence,
supported the case of the prosecution. On this
basis, the High Court held that the conviction
under Section 302 IPC of all three accused
could not be sustained on the confession or the
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 5 of 20
panch evidence, and acquitted Accused Nos.2
and 3 of that offence.
8. As to Section 201 IPC, the High Court confirmed
the conviction of all three accused, on the
ground that the dead body had been found in a
jeep connected to the appellant’s family, and
that blood-stains matching the deceased’s blood
group had been narrated by two witnesses,
namely, Manubhai Dahyaji Parmar (PW-18) and
Basirkhan Ismailkhan Nagori (PW-15). The High
Court confirmed the conviction of all three
accused under Section 201 IPC, reducing the
default sentence in the appellant’s case and
modified the appellant’s conviction to one under
Section 302 IPC retaining the sentence but
reducing the default sentence. Accused Nos. 2
and 3, having been acquitted under Section 302
IPC and the sentence under Section 201 IPC
having been undergone, were directed to be set
at liberty forthwith. While the appellant was
directed to surrender within twelve weeks.
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 6 of 20
9. Learned counsel for the appellant assails the
judgment of the High Court principally on the
ground that the evidentiary material relied upon
to convict the appellant, whether under Section
302 or Section 201 IPC, does not, on a fair
reading of the record, bear the weight the courts
below have placed upon it. There is no
eyewitness to the alleged assault; the case is
entirely one of circumstantial evidence, resting
on the theory of last seen together, an extra-
judicial confession, the recovery of the body and
of the weapon, and a forensic comparison of
blood group. The last-seen circumstance is itself
hearsay and inconsistent: none of the family
witnesses saw the deceased leave in the
appellant’s company, each speaking only of
what was later told to them; the deceased’s own
father named only Bhogilal Ramabhai and
Pravinbhai as having left with the deceased,
without naming the appellant, while other
family witnesses did include him; and more
than one of these witnesses admitted in cross-
examination that particulars now forming part
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 7 of 20
of their court testimony had found no place in
their statements to the police.
10. It is submitted that the alleged extra-judicial
confession is not a single, consistent piece of
evidence but at least three irreconcilable
accounts. The first informant attributed the
disclosure that an accident had occurred and
the body had been thrown into the canal to a
statement made by the appellant alone before
certain caste elders, and admitted in cross-
examination that no such statement found
mention in the FIR. A second witness from the
same group of elders attributed the identical
disclosure not to the appellant but to the co-
accused Bhogilal, with a different version of the
accident. A third account, given by the
deceased’s father, is that the confession was
extracted not before caste elders but at the
police station itself, after the police had “given
threat to all of them to tell the truth.” A
confession so variously placed as to its maker,
its audience, and its very locus cannot be
treated as a single reliable circumstance; one
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 8 of 20
extracted by the police under threat is not, in
any event, a voluntary statement of the kind the
law requires.
11. It is submitted that the theory of motive is
similarly infirm. The charge-sheet cites Gitaben
as the woman with whom the deceased is
alleged to have had an illicit relationship; she
denied knowing the appellant or the deceased,
denied the relationship, and was declared
hostile. One of the family witnesses relied upon
for the motive theory, however, named an
entirely different woman “Leelaben” as the
person concerned, a discrepancy neither
noticed nor reconciled by the courts below.
12. It is submitted that the recovery of the body and
of the axe rests entirely on panch witnesses
declared hostile at trial, each of whom resiled
from the panchnama to which he was witness.
The High Court itself held that the panch
witnesses had not supported the prosecution
case and, for that reason, declined to sustain
the conviction of Accused Nos. 2 and 3 under
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 9 of 20
Section 302 IPC; it nonetheless relied upon two
of these very witnesses, namely, Kapurji Takhaji
Chauhan (PW-31) and Rameshbhai
Shankarbhai Patel (PW-33), to hold the
appellant individually to be the author of the
crime, without indicating what part of their
testimony could safely be relied upon for that
limited purpose.
13. It is submitted, with particular emphasis, that
the finding sustaining Section 201 IPC does not
correspond to the evidence on record. The High
Court attributed the blood-stain evidence to two
witnesses, namely, PW-18 Manubhai Dahyaji
Parmar and PW-15 Basirkhan Ismailkhan
Nagori. Neither deposition bears this out: PW-
15, from whom the jeep was purchased, spoke
only to the sale and physical condition of the
vehicle and did not even identify the appellant
before the trial court; PW-18 is not a witness to
blood-stain evidence at all, but the hostile
panch to the inquest panchnama at the canal,
who did not support even that panchnama. The
witness who did depose to red-coloured stains
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 10 of 20
on the jeep’s meter and rear seat, PW-28
Kacharabhai Manabhai Vankar, the panch to
the jeep panchnama, is not among the two cited
by the High Court, and his evidence is itself
open to question: he deposed that the seat had
already been cleaned before the panchnama
was drawn, and admitted that he had been
brought to the police station by the first
informant, PW-2 Dinesh Maganbhai Vankar, a
member of the deceased’s own family, to serve
as a panch. Blood grouping of this kind is, in
any event, incapable of individualising a stain
to a particular person, “A” being a common
group, as the accused themselves stated in their
examination under Section 313 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure, 1973, without
contradiction by the prosecution.
14. It is finally submitted that the medical evidence
does not permit the certainty attributed to it by
the courts below. The postmortem was
conducted four days after the alleged
occurrence, and the medical officer could speak
to the time of death only within a range of three
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 11 of 20
to four days, a want of precision that weakens
the connection to the chain sought to be
established between the appellant and the
occurrence.
15. On the other hand the learned counsel for the
State has supported the impugned judgment
and has referred to the same.
16. We have heard learned counsel for the parties,
perused the judgments of the courts below
together with the record.
17. This Court does not, as a matter of course, re-
appreciate evidence or interfere with concurrent
findings of fact in the exercise of its jurisdiction
under Article 136 of the Constitution. However,
such interference is warranted only where the
findings are vitiated by an error of law, are
manifestly perverse, or disclose a departure
from settled principles of criminal
jurisprudence. Where a finding of guilt rests
upon evidence which the very same judgment
has, in relation to a co-accused facing an
identical charge, held to be insufficient to
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 12 of 20
sustain a conviction, or where the finding
proceeds on a reading of the evidence that is
plainly inconsistent with what the witness has
in fact deposed, the matter ceases to be one of
mere appreciation of evidence and assumes the
character of a legal infirmity in the decision-
making process. As was held by this Court in
Javed Shaukat Ali Qureshi v. State of
Gujarat1, where the evidence against multiple
accused is inseparable and of the same quality,
the Court cannot, without a cogent and legally
sustainable distinction, convict one accused
while extending the benefit of doubt to another
similarly situated co-accused.
18. Examined on this footing, the finding that the
appellant was individually the author of the
crime under Section 302 IPC does not withstand
scrutiny. It rests, as per the impugned
judgment, upon the testimony of PW-31 Kapurji
Takhaji Chauhan and PW-33 Rameshbhai
Shankarbhai Patel, the panch witnesses to the
recovery of the body and of the weapon,
1 (2023) 9 SCC 164
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 13 of 20
respectively, both of whom were declared hostile
at trial and neither of whom supported, in
evidence, the panchnama to which he was
witness. The High Court has, in the very same
judgment, held that the testimony of the panch
witnesses, being unsupportive of the
prosecution case, cannot sustain a conviction
under Section 302 IPC, and has acted upon that
finding to acquit the co-accused of the identical
charge. No feature distinguishing the
appellant’s case from that of the co-accused
who stand acquitted has been identified, either
in the impugned judgment or in the record; the
principle of parity referred to above applies with
full force.
19. The finding under Section 201 IPC calls for
equally careful examination. The blood-stain
evidence treated by the High Court as
corroborative is attributed to PW-18 and PW-15,
yet their depositions disclose no such evidence.
While PW-15 merely deposed to the sale of the
jeep, PW-18, the canal-panch, turned hostile
and did not support the prosecution on this
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 14 of 20
aspect. The witness who did refer to red stains,
PW-28 Kacharabhai Manabhai Vankar, was not
the witness relied upon by the High Court for
that purpose; he had admittedly been procured
as a panch by the complainant himself and,
significantly, deposed that the seat had already
been cleaned. A finding of guilt cannot rest upon
a factual premise that finds no support in the
evidence of the very witnesses relied upon by
the Court. Equally, the mere recovery of an
article, in this case the axe, bearing the same
blood group as that of the deceased cannot, in
the absence of a complete and corroborated
chain of incriminating circumstances
connecting the article with the accused and the
offence, elevate suspicion into proof. As
reiterated by this Court in Raja Naykar v.
State of Chhattisgarh2, such evidence,
standing alone and unsupported by a complete
chain of circumstances, is insufficient to
sustain a conviction.
2 (2024) 3 SCC 481
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 15 of 20
20. The remaining circumstances relied upon by
the prosecution do not bridge this evidentiary
gap. The alleged motive stands considerably
weakened, not only because Gitaben did not
support the prosecution, but also because
another witness attributed the alleged illicit
relationship of the appellant to an altogether
different woman. The last-seen circumstance is
equally inconclusive, resting as it does upon
second-hand accounts which are inconsistent
as to which of the three accused the deceased is
even alleged to have accompanied, while several
witnesses introduced material particulars in
their depositions which they admittedly had not
stated in their police statements.
21. The alleged extra-judicial confession is beset by
even graver infirmities. Far from constituting a
single and consistent account, the prosecution
has presented three irreconcilable versions
differing as to the maker of the confession, the
persons before whom it was allegedly made, and
the place where it was made. Apart from the bar
contained in Section 25 of the Indian Evidence
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 16 of 20
Act, 1872, this Court in Sahadevan v. State of
Tamil Nadu, (2012) 6 SCC 403, observed that
an extra-judicial confession is a weak piece of
evidence and can be acted upon only where it is
shown to be voluntary, truthful, inspires
confidence, and is free from material
discrepancies. A confession so fundamentally
inconsistent in its authorship and surrounding
circumstances falls far short of that standard.
Viewed cumulatively, the circumstances relied
upon by the prosecution do not form a complete
chain excluding every reasonable hypothesis
consistent with the innocence of the appellant,
nor do they establish, beyond reasonable doubt,
the appellant’s individual participation either in
the assault or in the subsequent disappearance
of evidence.
22. This Court is conscious that the present is not
a case of a wholly false implication
demonstrated on the record, nor of an alibi
established, nor of any affirmative finding that
the appellant had no connection whatsoever
with the events surrounding the deceased’s
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 17 of 20
death. What the record discloses, rather, is a
body of circumstantial evidence which, on a
careful appreciation, falls short of establishing
the appellant’s guilt to the standard required in
a criminal trial proof beyond reasonable doubt,
excluding every other reasonable hypothesis
consistent with innocence. The hostile
character of the witnesses on whom the
individual finding against the appellant rests,
the inconsistency in the last-seen and motive
accounts, the inadmissibility and the internal
contradiction surrounding the extra-judicial
confession, the mismatch between the evidence
actually on record and the findings recorded
upon it in respect of Section 201 IPC, and the
limited value of common blood-group evidence
in the circumstances in which it was gathered,
cumulatively give rise to such a doubt. The
appellant in such circumstances, is entitled to
the benefit of that doubt. The material on record
does not meet the standard of proof the law
requires before a conviction can be sustained
qualifying acquittal of the appellant on the
benefit of doubt.
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 18 of 20
23. In the light of the foregoing discussion, the
appeal is allowed. The judgment and order
dated 17.09.2013 passed by the High Court of
Gujarat at Ahmedabad in Criminal Appeal
No.1455 of 2008, insofar as it sustains the
conviction of the appellant under Section 302
IPC and under Section 201 read with Section 34
IPC, is set aside. The appellant is acquitted of
both offences, giving him the benefit of the
doubt.
24. The appellant shall be released forthwith, if not
required in connection with any other case,
subject to such formalities as the jail authorities
may require.
25. The Registry shall communicate a copy of this
order to the Superintendent of the jail in which
the appellant is presently confined, and to the
Special Judge (Atrocity), Himatnagar, Camp at
Idar, for compliance and information, forthwith.
The record and proceedings of the courts below
shall be sent back.
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 19 of 20
26. Pending applications, if any, stand disposed of.
…….……..………..………………..J.
[ SANJAY KAROL ]
…….……..………..………………..J.
[ AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH ]
NEW DELHI;
JULY 29, 2026.
Crl. A. No.1805/2014 Page 20 of 20
ITEM NO.104 COURT NO.8 SECTION II-E
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Criminal Appeal No.1805/2014
VINODBHAI BABUBHAI PARMAR Appellant(s)
VERSUS
THE STATE OF GUJARAT Respondent(s)
[TOP OF THE BOARD ]
Date : 29-07-2026 This appeal was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJAY KAROL
HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIHFor Appellant(s) : Mr. Mithilesh Kumar Singh, AOR
Mr. Ashutosh Kumar Singh, Adv.
Mrs. Manju Singh, Adv.
Mr. Tarun Verma, Adv.
For Respondent(s) :Ms. Swati Ghildiyal, AOR
Ms. Aditi Agarwal, Adv.
Ms. Apoorva Anand, Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
1. The appeal is allowed in terms of signed non-reportable
order.
2. The judgment and order dated 17.09.2013 passed by the High
Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad in Criminal Appeal No.1455 of
2008, insofar as it sustains the conviction of the appellant
under Section 302 IPC and under Section 201 read with Section
34 IPC, is set aside. The appellant is acquitted of both
offences, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
3. The appellant shall be released forthwith, if not required
in connection with any other case, subject to such formalities
as the jail authorities may require.
4. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.
(RAJNI MUKHI) (ANU BHALLA) ASTT. REGISTRAR-cum-PS COURT MASTER (NSH)
(Signed non-reportable order is placed on the file)
