Circumstantial Evidence: Pakistan and India Supreme Courts

Independently written and published by Shahbaz Shah Legal Journal.

The comparison in one sentence

Two Supreme Courts applied substantially the same foundational rule to circumstantial evidence and reached opposite results. In Obaidullah and others v. The State and others, 2025 SCMR 1558, the Supreme Court of Pakistan found missing and unreliable links and allowed the appeals. In Chetan v. State of Karnataka, 2025 INSC 793, the Supreme Court of India found an integrated chain of last-seen evidence, recovery, ballistics, conduct, and other circumstances and maintained the murder conviction.

The contrast is legally useful because it shows that the phrase complete chain is not a formula that decides a case by itself. A court must identify each alleged link, decide whether it was lawfully and independently proved, examine the integrity of recovery and forensic handling, and then ask whether the combined circumstances exclude every reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence.

The two judgments at a glance

• Pakistan: Obaidullah and 2 others v. The State and others, Jail Petitions Nos. 14 and 17 of 2020 and Criminal Petitions Nos. 1322 and 1323 of 2019, decided on 2 May 2025, reported as 2025 SCMR 1558.
• Pakistan bench: Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, and Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan.
• Pakistan result: the appeals were allowed because the delayed FIR, later implication, retracted confessions, disputed motive, suspect weapon and empties recovery, and contradictions did not establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
• India: Chetan v. State of Karnataka, Criminal Appeal No. 1568 of 2013, decided on 30 May 2025, neutral citation 2025 INSC 793 and reported at [2025] 5 SCR 906.
• India bench: Justice Surya Kant and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh; the judgment was authored by Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh.
• India result: the appeal was dismissed to the extent of the murder, gold-chain misappropriation, and Arms Act convictions. The appellant received the benefit of doubt only on the alleged recovery of the Nokia mobile phone.

The shared question of criminal proof

Neither judgment permits a conviction merely because several suspicious facts appear together. The prosecution must first prove the individual circumstances through admissible and reliable evidence. Those circumstances must then connect continuously and point only toward the guilt of the accused.

The Pakistani formulation describes a chain whose ends connect the death with the accused. The Indian formulation requires fully established circumstances forming a complete chain without a break and excluding every reasonable alternative hypothesis. The language differs, but the controlling concern is the same: suspicion cannot be converted into proof by accumulating weak circumstances.

This comparison therefore concerns the quality and connection of evidence, not a difference in the basic standard of proof.

Why the chain failed in Obaidullah

The prosecution case arose from the death of the complainant's nephew. The deceased had been missing since 11 June 2018, but the FIR was lodged on 22 June 2018. The present petitioners were not named in that FIR. They were implicated later through the alleged disclosure of a co-accused who was subsequently acquitted.

The trial court convicted the petitioners under sections 302(b) and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code and imposed imprisonment for life. The Balochistan High Court maintained the convictions. The Supreme Court, however, found that the prosecution material did not form a legally dependable chain.

The eleven-day delay was not treated as an automatic ground of acquittal. Its importance came from the surrounding circumstances: the petitioners were absent from the original accusation, no motive was stated in the FIR, and their later implication depended on material that itself required independent verification.

The retracted confessions lacked a reliable foundation

The prosecution relied substantially on judicial confessions that were later retracted. A retracted confession is not legally useless merely because it has been withdrawn. It may support a conviction if it is voluntary, lawfully recorded, trustworthy, and independently corroborated in material particulars.

Those safeguards were not satisfied in Obaidullah. The reported judgment records that the Magistrate said in evidence that the petitioners' handcuffs were unlocked and the police were sent away, but those matters were not documented in his reports. The record also failed to establish how much time was allowed for reflection before the confessions were recorded and how the Magistrate satisfied himself that the statements were free from pressure or coercion.

The alleged motive within the confessions was equally insecure. The FIR did not state that the deceased was engaged to the female co-accused or that this relationship supplied a motive for murder. The complainant and the deceased's brother did not prove that alleged engagement. No phone numbers, call-data record, or transcript was produced to support the alleged communications between the accused persons.

Most importantly, the motive was not put to the petitioners during their examination under section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. An incriminating circumstance withheld at that stage cannot fairly be used against an accused who was never given the required opportunity to answer it.

Why the forensic link was rejected in Pakistan

The pistol was not recovered from either petitioner. It was recovered from another person, identified in the report as KR, who was not called to prove that either petitioner had supplied the weapon. Instead, KR faced a separate Arms Ordinance case arising from possession of that pistol.

The handling of the crime-scene empties created a further and serious problem. No empty cartridge was recovered when the body was found on 22 June 2018. The empties were reportedly recovered later, after the petitioners' arrest on 29 June, from the same place where the body had already been recovered. The empties and pistol were then submitted together for forensic examination.

On those facts, a positive laboratory result could not repair the doubtful origin and handling of the exhibits. Forensic science is only as reliable as the legally proved identity, recovery, custody, and continuity of the material tested. Where the connection between the exhibit, the scene, and the accused is doubtful, the laboratory opinion cannot create the missing chain.

Contradictions also weakened the prosecution narrative

The FIR attributed an attempt to bury the body to the co-accused who was later acquitted. The retracted confessions gave a different account in which the petitioners said they had buried the body and filled the grave with earth. The complainant did not assign a role to the petitioners in his trial testimony.

The medical evidence did not provide the expected corroboration for the confession narrative. The medical officer did not record soil or earth on the body or its clothing. The Supreme Court considered these matters cumulatively rather than treating each defect in isolation. The chain failed because the circumstances did not reliably connect at multiple critical points.

Why the chain held in Chetan

Chetan concerned the death of Vikram Shinde in Karnataka. The prosecution alleged that the appellant and deceased were friends, that a monetary dispute had caused resentment, and that on the night of 10 July 2006 the appellant took the deceased on a motorcycle after obtaining his grandfather's 12-bore double-barrel gun on the pretext of hunting. The body was discovered on 13 July 2006.

There was no eyewitness to the shooting. The conviction therefore depended on circumstantial evidence. Unlike Obaidullah, however, the Indian Supreme Court found that the circumstances were independently proved and reinforced one another.

Witnesses placed the appellant and deceased together before the disappearance. The Court examined challenges to the last-seen testimony and accepted the relevant witnesses as credible. The time between the last sighting and discovery of the body was not considered in isolation because later recoveries and scientific evidence connected the appellant to the fatal shooting.

Recovery and ballistics supplied the objective link

The double-barrel gun belonging to the appellant's grandfather was recovered at the appellant's instance along with two spent cartridges and one live cartridge. Pellets and wads recovered from the deceased's skull were examined. The ballistic expert found that the spent cartridges had been fired from the recovered gun and that the pellets and wads were consistent with the same class of 12-bore ammunition. The gun was in working condition and showed evidence of discharge.

The prosecution witnesses, including the forensic and ballistic experts, were cross-examined at length. The Court found that their credibility and the scientific linkage survived that scrutiny. The recovery was not treated as a detached piece of evidence; it connected the weapon accessible to the appellant, the discharged cartridges, and the material recovered from the body.

That evidentiary continuity is the central difference from Obaidullah. In Pakistan, the weapon came from a third party who was not called, the empties appeared only after the original scene examination, and the exhibits were submitted together in circumstances that undermined confidence. In India, the Court found a proved route from recovery at the appellant's instance to the scientific opinion and the fatal injury.

Last-seen evidence was supported, not used alone

The Indian judgment does not create a rule that the last person seen with a victim must explain the death or be convicted. Last-seen evidence remains a circumstance whose strength depends on proximity, reliability, opportunity, and the presence or absence of corroboration.

In Chetan, the Court treated the time-gap requirement as fact-sensitive. The gap did not destroy the inference because the last-seen testimony was accompanied by weapon recovery, ballistic evidence, the appellant's evasive conduct and absence, and recovery of the deceased's gold chain. The circumstances together progressively narrowed the reasonable possibilities.

This point must be applied carefully. A long interval with no reliable supporting evidence may leave open the real possibility of intervention by another person. Chetan sustains the last-seen circumstance because of the surrounding proof, not because time ceased to matter.

Abscondence and silence were only additional links

The Indian Supreme Court accepted the appellant's abscondence and misleading explanations about his whereabouts as relevant conduct. It also considered his failure to explain the recovery and discharged condition of the gun when those incriminating circumstances were put to him under section 313 of the Indian Code of Criminal Procedure.

The judgment expressly preserved the prosecution's primary burden. An accused does not become guilty merely by offering a false defence, remaining silent, or failing to prove an alibi. Such conduct may strengthen an already established prosecution case; it cannot fill a gap in a chain that the prosecution has failed to prove.

This qualification keeps Chetan consistent with Obaidullah. In the Pakistani case, missing, disputed, and procedurally defective prosecution links could not be supplied by a confession or an allegation not fairly put under section 342. In the Indian case, the prosecution first established objective circumstances, and the inadequate explanation operated only as an additional link.

The partial benefit of doubt in Chetan matters

Although the Indian Supreme Court upheld the principal convictions, it did not accept every prosecution allegation. It gave the appellant the benefit of doubt regarding the recovery of the deceased's Nokia mobile phone. The conviction under section 404 of the Indian Penal Code was nevertheless sustained regarding the deceased's gold chain.

That limited relief demonstrates issue-by-issue evaluation. A court need not choose between accepting the entire prosecution narrative and rejecting it wholesale. Each alleged recovery and each offence must be separately tested, while the remaining proved circumstances are considered for their cumulative effect.

Motive: useful but not always indispensable

The two decisions also show why motive cannot be discussed as an abstract requirement.

In Obaidullah, the absence of motive in the delayed FIR mattered because the later confession-based motive was not independently corroborated, was not supported by communications evidence, and was not put to the petitioners under section 342. It was another unproved link in an already fragile case.

In Chetan, evidence of a dispute supported the prosecution account, but the Indian Supreme Court also explained that failure to prove motive is not necessarily fatal where the remaining circumstances form a complete chain. Absence of motive should make a court scrutinise the evidence more carefully; it does not erase otherwise conclusive proof.

Same rule, opposite evidentiary outcomes

The contrast can be reduced to five practical propositions:

• Every circumstance must be proved before the court considers its cumulative effect.
• Last-seen evidence ordinarily requires reliable corroboration, especially where the time gap permits other reasonable possibilities.
• A forensic opinion cannot outrun the proof of recovery, identity, sealing, custody, transmission, and integrity of the exhibits examined.
• A retracted confession requires strict proof of voluntariness, lawful recording, trustworthiness, and independent corroboration.
• Silence, a false answer, abscondence, or failure to explain can add weight only after the prosecution has established an otherwise coherent chain.

Practical checklist for circumstantial-evidence trials

For the prosecution, the record should identify every circumstance relied upon and the witness or document that proves it. Recovery memos, seals, custody entries, dispatch dates, laboratory receipt, examination methods, and return of exhibits should form a continuous documented history. Incriminating circumstances must be put clearly to the accused at the statutory examination stage.

For the defence, each link should be tested separately before addressing the chain as a whole. Counsel should examine the timing of the FIR and supplementary statements, the first naming of the accused, motive, last-seen opportunity, scene security, recovery witnesses, ownership and access to the weapon, sealing and custody, laboratory dates, expert limitations, and whether the exact circumstance was put to the accused.

For trial courts, the judgment should distinguish proof of an individual circumstance from the inference drawn by combining circumstances. It should also explain why reasonable alternative hypotheses are excluded. Describing evidence as a complete chain is a conclusion that must follow analysis, not replace it.

Which judgment controls in Pakistan?

Obaidullah is a judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and its declaration of law is binding on other courts in Pakistan within the scope of Article 189 of the Constitution. Chetan is not binding precedent in Pakistan. Its reasoning may be studied comparatively or, where appropriate, cited for persuasive value, but it cannot displace Pakistani constitutional, statutory, or binding judicial authority.

The comparison is still valuable. Both legal systems inherited related evidentiary concepts, and both judgments expose the same practical fault line: scientific evidence strengthens a case only when the underlying exhibits and recovery are credible; an inference of guilt is safe only when the proved circumstances connect without a reasonable break.

The Indian judgment applied the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 to the case before it. India has since brought new criminal codes into force. This article describes the statutes and provisions applied in Chetan and should not be read as a guide to the numbering of the later codes.

Critical analysis

The strength of Obaidullah lies in its insistence that forensic vocabulary cannot conceal weaknesses in exhibit history. A positive laboratory report may appear objective, but the inference drawn from it depends on who recovered the material, when it was found, how it was sealed, and whether the prosecution proved continuity. The decision correctly treats those matters as part of substantive reliability, not as minor paperwork.

Chetan is strongest where it evaluates the evidence cumulatively without allowing one circumstance to carry the entire case. Last-seen testimony alone might have been vulnerable because of the time interval. Abscondence alone would have been equivocal. Motive alone would prove little. The scientific link between the recovered gun, spent cartridges, and material from the body gave the other circumstances their combined force.

The caution in applying Chetan concerns the accused's explanation. Courts must preserve the sequence of reasoning: first decide whether the prosecution has proved the incriminating facts; only then consider whether silence or a false answer provides additional support. Reversing that sequence would impermissibly require the accused to prove innocence.

Read together, the judgments do not represent a prosecution-friendly rule in India and a defence-friendly rule in Pakistan. They demonstrate evidence-sensitive adjudication. One record contained several unproved and contaminated links. The other contained mutually reinforcing testimony, recovery, forensic proof, and conduct that survived adversarial testing.

What these judgments do not decide

Obaidullah does not hold that every delayed FIR is false, every retracted confession is inadmissible, or every forensic report submitted with another exhibit is worthless. The defects mattered because of their combined effect on the particular prosecution chain.

Chetan does not hold that last-seen evidence automatically shifts the burden of proving a murder to the accused. It does not make abscondence proof of guilt, and it does not permit section 313 answers to replace proof by the prosecution.

Neither case reduces reasonable doubt to an imaginary or remote possibility. The doubt must arise rationally from the evidence or the failure to produce reliable evidence. Equally, a court cannot dismiss a real missing link as a technicality merely because the accusation is serious.

Conclusion

Obaidullah and Chetan provide a clear comparative lesson on circumstantial evidence in murder trials. The legal test is demanding but workable: prove each circumstance lawfully, preserve the integrity of physical evidence, connect the circumstances without a reasonable break, and consider the accused's explanation only after the prosecution has discharged its burden.

The Pakistani Supreme Court acquitted because delayed implication, defective confessions, disputed motive, suspect recovery, and contradictions left multiple breaks in the chain. The Indian Supreme Court upheld the principal convictions because credible last-seen evidence, recovery at the appellant's instance, ballistic linkage, possession of the deceased's property, and conduct formed a coherent whole.

The decisive difference was not the label circumstantial evidence. It was the reliability of every link beneath that label.

This commentary is independent legal analysis for research and general information. The official judgments, current statutory texts, and the complete record of a particular case should be verified before reliance in legal proceedings.