The Supreme Court has upheld a woman’s acquittal in the murder case involving her stepmother and minor half-brother, holding that the prosecution failed to establish her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Noting gaps in the investigation, the Court pointed out that mobile tower location data had not been obtained to establish the accused’s whereabouts.
It added that the alleged presence of her blood at the crime scene was not conclusive evidence of her involvement.
A bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Vijay Bishnoi delivered the judgment on October 1, 2026, while dismissing the appeal filed by the State of Himachal Pradesh against the Himachal Pradesh High Court’s July 28, 2014 judgment acquitting Anchla alias Chanchla.
The High Court had set aside her conviction and sentence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, imposed by the trial court in November 2012.
The case arose from the discovery of the bodies of Mithilesh Kumari and her minor son, Bhupinder Singh, at their house in Diur on September 7, 2011.
Their bodies were found after Mithilesh’s father, Bhagi Ram, informed the police that his daughter had been missing for six to seven days and that a foul smell was emanating from her locked house.
The post-mortem examination established that both had died due to strangulation, with death estimated to have occurred five to seven days before the examination.
According to the prosecution, Anchla was born from the first marriage of Amar Singh, who later married Mithilesh. Bhupinder was born from the second marriage.
The prosecution alleged that Anchla murdered the two to obtain property allegedly bequeathed by her father to Bhupinder.
The prosecution relied on the claim that Anchla had visited Mithilesh’s house on August 31, 2011, and was last seen there before the house was found locked the following morning.
It also relied on the testimony of a taxi driver, who claimed to have taken her from Chamba to Diur and back that night, and a hotel employee who allegedly saw her at a hotel in Chamba.
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The prosecution further relied on an injury to her left thumb, the recovery of the deceased’s mobile phone and a bunch of keys, and a forensic report matching her DNA profile with blood collected from an article at the scene.
However, the Supreme Court found that the evidence concerning the alleged last-seen circumstance was not sufficiently reliable.
Bhagi Ram, the prosecution’s principal witness on this aspect, had not mentioned in his earlier statement to the police that he had seen Anchla talking to Bhupinder at the house.
The Court held that this omission amounted to an improvement in his testimony and observed that, “on the sole basis of PW-1’s testimony it would be unsafe to hold that the accused was with the deceased in the evening of 31.08.2011.”
The Court also questioned the credibility of the taxi driver and the hotel employee.
The investigating officer could neither explain what had prompted him to record their statements nor specify when they were recorded.
The Court noted that travelling by taxi or staying at a hotel was not, by itself, an incriminating circumstance likely to prompt a person to approach the police.
It concluded that the statements appeared to have been recorded to create evidence and held that the two witnesses could not reliably corroborate the alleged last-seen circumstance.
A significant concern was the failure of the investigating agency to obtain the tower locations of the mobile phones belonging to the accused and the deceased.
The Court observed that this information could have helped determine whether the two phones were in close proximity on the relevant date and whether the deceased’s phone remained active after August 31, 2011.
The call detail records were also deficient, and the deceased’s call detail record was not even exhibited in evidence.
The bench described the failure to collect the tower locations as a serious investigative lapse, noting that the information could have either corroborated or undermined the prosecution’s case.
It further observed that the prosecution had offered no explanation for this omission.
On the DNA evidence, the bench accepted the forensic report showing a match between the accused’s blood profile and blood collected from an article at the house.
However, it held that the match did not establish when her blood had been deposited there.
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Since the prosecution itself maintained that Anchla had visited the house regularly in the past, the possibility that the blood had been deposited during an earlier visit could not be ruled out.
The Court also noted that her blood was not found on the clothes of the deceased or on any material allegedly used to strangle them.
The bench further considered the prosecution’s reliance on the injury to Anchla’s left thumb.
She had explained that her thumb was crushed in a car door while travelling to Mani Mahesh and had produced the medical slip showing treatment on September 1, 2011.
The Court found that the surrounding evidence did not reliably establish that the injury connected her to the murders.
The Court reiterated that a conviction based on circumstantial evidence requires a complete chain of circumstances pointing conclusively to the guilt of the accused and excluding every reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence.
It found that the circumstances relied upon by the prosecution did not meet this standard.
Concluding that the prosecution had failed to establish the charge, the bench held that there was no reason to interfere with the High Court’s decision.
The State’s appeal was accordingly dismissed, and the acquittal of Anchla alias Chanchla was upheld.
Case: The State of Himachal Pradesh vs Anchla @ Chanchla
Case No.: Criminal Appeal No. – 166 of 2019
Date of Order: 01.10.2026
Status: Dismissed
