Call Records Without Section 65-B Certificate Are Inadmissible, Oral Evidence Of Nodal Officer No Substitute: Supreme Court Acquits Murder Convict

"Oral evidence in place of such certificate cannot possibly suffice — to hold otherwise would render Section 65-B(4) otiose", In a significant ruling on the law of circumstantial evidence, the Supreme Court of India on March 10, 2026, set aside the concurrent conviction of a murder accused whose entire case rested on three pieces of evidence — call detail records, a blood-stained shirt, and recovered currency notes — none of which survived legal scrutiny.

A three-judge bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta, and N.V. Anjaria acquitted Pooranmal, who had been serving life imprisonment for the murder of Aruna, wife of his co-accused Ladu Lal, holding that the prosecution had failed to establish an unbroken chain of circumstances pointing unequivocally to his guilt.

Background of the Case

On the intervening night of March 2 and 3, 2010, Aruna was found murdered in her bedroom in Bijolia, Rajasthan, with visible head injuries and a missing sum of approximately Rs. 4 lakh. Her husband Ladu Lal, who had lodged the initial FIR alleging unknown persons, was arrested after his evasive responses drew suspicion. Based on Ladu Lal's disclosure statement, Pooranmal was implicated as the alleged hired killer. The Trial Court at Bhilwara convicted both under Sections 302/34 and 201 IPC and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The Rajasthan High Court affirmed the conviction in 2018. Ladu Lal's SLP was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2022. Pooranmal, unable to pursue an appeal due to poverty, filed the present appeal through legal aid after a delay of 2,749 days, which the Court condoned.

Legal Issues

The central legal questions before the Court were whether the three circumstances relied upon by the prosecution — call detail records, recovery of a blood-stained shirt, and recovery of currency notes — individually and collectively satisfied the stringent standards governing conviction on circumstantial evidence, and specifically whether call detail records produced without a certificate under Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act could be admitted at all.

Court's Observations and Judgment

The Court commenced its analysis by reaffirming the five golden principles governing circumstantial evidence as laid down in the landmark Constitution Bench decision in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra (1984). The Court underscored the critical distinction between what "may be proved" and what "must be proved," quoting approvingly from Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade v. State of Maharashtra: "Certainly, it is a primary principle that the accused must be and not merely may be guilty before a court can convict and the mental distance between 'may be' and 'must be' is long and divides vague conjectures from sure conclusions."

On Recovery of Currency Notes

The Court identified a glaring discrepancy at the threshold itself. While the recovery memo recorded seizure of Rs. 46,000/-, the Investigating Officer (PW.22) admitted in cross-examination that the notes counted in Court amounted to Rs. 46,145/-, with no explanation for the extra Rs. 145/- anywhere on the sealed packet. The Court held that the recovery itself was doubtful, and further observed that even a valid recovery of currency notes, without cogent evidence establishing a nexus between the amount and the alleged crime of contract killing, could not constitute an incriminating circumstance against the accused. The State's argument invoking Section 106 of the Evidence Act — that Pooranmal being poor could not explain possession of such a large sum — was rejected as insufficient to cure the infirmities in the recovery itself.

On Recovery of the Blood-Stained Shirt

The Court found the recovery of the blood-stained shirt "totally unreliable" on two independent grounds. First, it held the recovery inherently improbable on common sense: Pooranmal was a free man from the night of the incident on March 2-3, 2010, until his arrest on March 4, 2010. The Court observed that "it is highly improbable and unnatural that the appellant-Pooranmal, who was a free bird, would have taken such great pains to conceal the shirt so meticulously rather than simply destroying it by burning," adding that even if he wished to preserve it, washing it would have sufficed to destroy the blood stains.

Second, and more critically, the prosecution failed to establish the chain of custody of the muddamal articles. The malkhana register (Ex. D-3) showed the samples were forwarded to the FSL on 12th March, 2010, whereas Head Constable Mathura Singh (PW.19) stated they were sent out on 15th March, 2010 and returned, and Carrier Constable Surender Singh (PW.16) insisted he carried them only on 18th March, 2010. The reasons for return of the samples were never disclosed by the prosecution. Relying on Karandeep Sharma v. State of Uttarakhand (2025), the Court reiterated that "the prosecution would first be required to prove the sanctity and chain of custody of the samples/articles right from the time of their preparation/collection till the time they reached the FSL," and held that the "utter failure of the prosecution to disclose as to the reasons for which the samples were returned from the FSL breaches the unbroken chain of custody mandatorily required."

The Court further held, following Allarakha Habib Memon v. State of Gujarat (2024) and Mustkeem v. State of Rajasthan (2011), that even if the FSL report (Ex. P-49) established that the blood group on the shirt matched that of the deceased (Group O), "such finding would by itself not be incriminating in the absence of other cogent and corroborative evidence completing the chain of circumstances." The FSL report was consequently rendered "redundant and a worthless piece of paper."

"Certificate under Section 65-B is a condition precedent to admissibility of electronic evidence — oral evidence in the place of such certificate cannot possibly suffice"

On Admissibility of Call Detail Records

The Court dealt a decisive blow to the prosecution's reliance on call detail records showing continuous contact between Pooranmal and Ladu Lal around the time of the murder. The prosecution had not produced a certificate under Section 65-B(4) of the Evidence Act, instead arguing that the nodal officers of the service providers — Vibhor Rastogi (PW.23) and Saurabh Kumar (PW.24) — had proved the records through oral testimony, and that non-production of the certificate was not fatal.

The Court categorically rejected this submission. Reaffirming Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer (2014) and Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal (2020), the Court held that the certificate under Section 65-B is a mandatory condition precedent to admissibility of electronic evidence, not a mere procedural technicality that can be substituted by oral evidence. "The Evidence Act does not contemplate or permit the proof of an electronic record by oral evidence if requirements under Section 65-B of the Evidence Act are not complied with," the Court observed, adding that to hold otherwise "would render Section 65-B(4) otiose." The call detail records were accordingly held inadmissible.

Having found that all three incriminating circumstances failed to withstand scrutiny, the Court set aside the concurrent findings of the Trial Court and the High Court. It acquitted Pooranmal of all charges under Sections 302/34 and 201 IPC, directing his immediate release from custody. The Court noted that it had specifically distinguished Pooranmal's case from that of co-convict Ladu Lal — against whom the prosecution had additionally invoked Section 106 of the Evidence Act based on his peculiar position as the husband of the deceased — and that the dismissal of Ladu Lal's SLP could not operate as a bar to examining Pooranmal's distinct case on its own merits.

Date of Decision: March 10, 2026