Hostile Witnesses, Police-Only Recovery Witnesses: Rajasthan High Court Acquits Man of Murdering Wife and Two Daughters

Published: 3 November 2026 · NyayVidhan

The Rajasthan High Court at Jaipur set aside the life sentence of a man convicted in 2018 of killing his wife and two daughters with an axe in a Jaipur district village in January 2014, and acquitted him (para 19). Every witness to the incident and to his alleged admission turned hostile, and the axe and clothes recoveries were not proved. The Division Bench refused to presume guilt merely because he lived with them (paras 16-17).

Hostile Witnesses, Police-Only Recovery Witnesses: Rajasthan High Court Acquits Man of Murdering Wife and Two Daughters

Judgment Intelligence

Conviction Set Aside

Simbhu Singh v. State of Rajasthan

2026:RJ-JP:44339-DB

D.B. Criminal Appeal (Db) No. 498/2018

Court: Rajasthan High Court
Date of Decision: 30 October 2026
Bench: Justice Mahendar Kumar Goyal and Justice Bhuwan Goyal
Relevant Acts & Sections: Indian Penal Code, 1860 — Section 302; Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 — Sections 313, 374, 437A; Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 — Section 481

Final Outcome

Appeal allowed: the 31.07.2018 judgment and sentence were set aside; Simbhu Singh was acquitted under Section 302 IPC and is to be released unless wanted elsewhere (para 19). He must furnish a Rs 50,000 bond and surety for six months under Section 437-A CrPC / Section 481 BNSS (para 20).

Source Rajasthan High Court, hcraj.nic.in — judgment dated 30 October 2026

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Key holdings

Co-residence alone does not shift the burden; the prosecution must first prove the accused was present at the time of death (paras 16-17).
His Section 313 plea that he was away stood unrebutted, and no witness or mobile location placed him at home (para 17).
A recovery from an enclosure open to anyone does not prove exclusive possession by the accused (para 14).
Seizure witnesses who were police personnel, without daily-diary or log-sheet support, left the clothes recovery unproved (para 15).
Without a forensic or blood-group report, blood on the axe and clothes was not linked to the deceased (paras 14-15).

Judgment digest by NyayVidhan: a summary of the court's judgment, not its text. The judgment itself is the authoritative version.

Brief Facts

According to the complainant's written report of 11.01.2014, women at a post-death feast said the appellant was quarrelling with his wife; the complainant and another man went to the house, found him at the door in blood-stained clothes and saw his wife and two daughters lying dead, and he allegedly said he had killed them with an axe (para 2). A case under Section 302 IPC was registered at Police Station Dudu (para 3). The prosecution examined 30 witnesses (para 4). In his Section 313 statement he said he was not at the spot (para 5). On 31.07.2018 the Additional Sessions Judge, Dudu sentenced him to life imprisonment and a Rs 5,000 fine (para 1).

Court's Findings

The deceased woman's mother-in-law, examined as an eyewitness, turned hostile and said he was not at home that day (para 11). The complainant and two others said to have heard his admission also turned hostile; the complainant said the police took his thumb impression on blank paper, and the scribe's account was not reliable: he put the writing at about 12.00, yet the report was registered at 11.00 am (para 12). Five more witnesses did not support the prosecution (para 13). The axe was recovered from an enclosure that the investigating officer admitted anyone could enter; it was shown seized on 12.01.2014 but entered in the malkhana register on 11.01.2014, unexplained, and no report linked its blood to the deceased (para 14). His clothes were seized before two police witnesses, with no explanation for the absence of independent witnesses, no daily-diary entry or vehicle log-sheet and no blood-group report (para 15). The Court rejected the Public Prosecutor's argument that, living with them, he had to explain the deaths: no witness or mobile location placed him there (paras 16-17).

Legal Principle

An accused who lived with the deceased can be presumed responsible for their deaths only after the prosecution proves, beyond reasonable doubt and with supporting evidence, that he was with them when they died. Recoveries from an open place, attested only by police witnesses and not linked by forensic evidence, cannot complete the chain (paras 14-17).

NyayVidhan's view · Practice note

Why It Matters

This judgment shows how a murder conviction resting on hostile witnesses can also fail on the recoveries. The axe came from an enclosure open to anyone, the malkhana register showed it deposited a day before its recorded seizure, and the clothes were seized before police witnesses alone, without daily-diary or log-sheet support (paras 14-15). The Court refused to presume guilt from living together without proof that he was present (paras 16-17), as the same Bench held three days earlier in Balbeer v. State of Rajasthan, where Section 106 could not fill a broken chain. Contrast Ramkishan Jadhav v. State of Maharashtra, where the wife died in the husband's exclusive company.

Editorial comment by the NyayVidhan Editorial Desk. It is not part of the Court's judgment and is not legal advice.

Precedents Relied Upon

Subramaniam v. State of Tamil Nadu & Another (2009) 14 Supreme Court Cases 415
Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 18
Named as 'Subramaniam (Supra)'; the judgment prints no citation, completed by the editor from the identical extract in this Bench's judgment of 27.10.2026. Paragraphs 23-24 of the report were quoted: a husband and wife living together within four walls is a strong circumstance but, in the absence of evidence of violence on the deceased, not conclusive; with the passages on presumption from Trimukh Maroti Kirkan and Mir Mohammad Omar. Quoted in support of the rejection of the co-residence argument.