The Supreme Court has made it clear that the absence of a victim's body does not mean there was no murder. In a significant ruling, the court said a person can be convicted of murder even if the victim's body is never recovered, provided the prosecution proves that the crime took place through reliable evidence.

The bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Prasanna B Varale observed that the law requires proof that an offence has been committed, not the production of the victim's body. The court warned that making recovery of a body mandatory for conviction would only help those who successfully dispose of a corpse evade justice.

Justice cannot depend on a body

The observations came while upholding the life sentence of an Assam man convicted of murdering a 10-year-old adopted girl whose body was allegedly thrown into a river and was never found.

The Supreme Court affirmed the concurrent findings of the trial court and the Gauhati High Court, holding that the prosecution had proved the offence through credible evidence despite the absence of the body.

In its judgment released on Wednesday, the bench said, "A person can be convicted of murdering another even if the latter's body has not been recovered." Explaining the legal principle of corpus delicti, the court said it means proving that an offence has been committed and not that the dead body of the murdered person has been recovered, HT reports.

The appeal was filed by Debojit Pankika of Assam, who challenged his conviction under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code in a 2015 case.

According to the prosecution, the deceased child had been living with the appellant and his mother, who was the girl's aunt, after being adopted. The child's adoptive mother had left home for medical treatment, leaving the girl in the appellant's exclusive care. The child later went missing.

Evidence over recovery

The prosecution's case relied mainly on the testimony of a witness who said the appellant confessed that the child caught fire after being accused of stealing ₹40. The witness alleged that the appellant then threatened him with a knife and forced him to help carry the child's body, wrapped in a sack, on a bicycle before throwing it into the Teok river. Despite efforts, investigators were unable to recover the body.

Rejecting the defence's argument that the absence of the body weakened the prosecution's case, the Supreme Court said the matter fell squarely within the principle of corpus delicti. The court explained that in a murder case, the doctrine requires proof of death and proof that the death resulted from the criminal act of another. While one element may be established through direct evidence, the other can be proved through circumstantial evidence.

The bench also referred to earlier judgments and observed that making recovery of a body an absolute requirement for conviction would create a dangerous precedent by allowing offenders who successfully dispose of a corpse to escape punishment.

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The court further found the prosecution's key witness to be reliable despite claims of previous hostility with the appellant. It noted that the witness consistently maintained that he had been threatened with a dagger and forced to accompany the appellant while the body was transported in a sack. The fact that the witness did not falsely claim to have seen the actual murder strengthened, rather than weakened, his credibility, the bench observed.

The Supreme Court also treated the appellant's failure to explain the child's disappearance for 22 days as an additional incriminating circumstance, reinforcing the prosecution's case.

The ruling sends out a clear message that justice cannot be defeated simply because a body is missing. By reaffirming that credible direct and circumstantial evidence can establish murder, the Supreme Court has closed a potential loophole that could otherwise allow perpetrators to escape accountability.