Voice Recognition by Familiarity Can Sustain Conviction Even Without Spectrography: Gujarat High Court Upholds Life Sentence in Child Murder for Ransom

“Complete Chain of Circumstantial Evidence Leaves No Room for Doubt” – The Gujarat High Court delivered a decisive judgment in Hirenbhai Jayantibhai Patel v. State of Gujarat, upholding the conviction and life sentence of the appellant in a chilling case of child kidnapping and murder for ransom. The Court found that the prosecution had successfully proved a continuous and unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence that led unequivocally to the guilt of the accused.
“Mere suspicion cannot overthrow an otherwise complete chain of circumstances,” observed the Division Bench of Justice Ilesh J. Vora and Justice Sandeep N. Bhatt, rejecting the defence's attempt to question the absence of direct evidence or independent witnesses.
The incident occurred on July 5, 2010, when eight-year-old Shrey, son of Jignesh Patel, went missing after purchasing sweets and a soft drink. The boy was last seen near his house in Chapad village, Vadodara. That evening, he never returned home. Days later, it was revealed that the child had been kidnapped by the appellant Hirenbhai, a neighbour and family acquaintance, who strangulated him with a cotton rope, placed the body in a tin barrel, and buried it in a water tank located in a yard controlled by his family.
The prosecution relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, which the High Court found consistent, credible, and incriminating. “The circumstances from which an inference of guilt is drawn have been cogently and firmly established and are incompatible with the innocence of the accused,” the Court stated. It reaffirmed the legal position that in cases resting on circumstantial evidence, “there must be a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that the crime was committed by the accused and none else.”
One of the most pivotal pieces of evidence was a ransom call made to the child’s father. The prosecution established that Jignesh Patel, who had returned from a pilgrimage, received a phone call demanding ₹10 lakh for the child’s release. The caller never called again, but the father identified the voice as that of the appellant, his neighbour.
On the issue of voice identification, the defence argued that the absence of a voice spectrography test weakened the prosecution’s case. The Court, however, rejected this contention. Citing precedents such as Dola @ Dola Gobinda Pradhan v. State of Odisha and Mohansingh v. State of Punjab, the Court held that, “when the witness and the accused are known to each other, identification of voice through familiarity is a valid and acceptable form of evidence.”
“In the matter on hand, the complainant was living adjacent to the house of the accused in the same village. Since long, their relations were cordial. Due to this close acquaintance, the complainant could identify the voice of the accused,” the Court remarked. “When the call was not received again, he immediately lodged a complaint, naming Hiren Patel.”

The Court also found the discovery of the child’s body and slippers at the instance of the accused to be damning. “The dead body was recovered from the yard used by the accused’s family, buried in a water tank, with a cotton rope still around the neck. The same rope was noted by the postmortem doctor as the cause of strangulation.”
According to the forensic evidence, bloodstains on a computer and clothes recovered from the accused’s house matched the blood group of the deceased. “For these incriminating circumstances, the accused offered no explanation in his statement under Section 313 CrPC,” the Court said, relying on State of Maharashtra v. Damu Gopinath Shinde to support the admissibility of discoveries under Section 27 of the Evidence Act.
The Court noted that the accused had also purchased 15 kg of salt from a local shopkeeper, ostensibly to help decompose the body. “When asked why he needed so much salt, the accused falsely claimed it was for earthing purposes,” the Court noted. The salt was later found sprinkled over the child’s body.
Though the defence challenged the yard’s ownership—arguing it was panchayat land open to all—the Court rejected this point, stating, “The ownership of the yard is immaterial. What matters is that the accused and his family had control and possession over it.”
The defence also claimed political influence in the prosecution, alleging that the child’s father was a powerful man whose wife was the village sarpanch. But the Court found no credible evidence to support any such theory of false implication. “There is no reason for the complainant to falsely implicate the accused. The testimony of PW-13 stands independently, unshaken in cross-examination, and corroborated by surrounding facts.”
The Court concluded by affirming the lower court’s conviction of the accused for offences under Sections 302, 364A, 363, and 201 IPC, sentencing him to life imprisonment.
“There being no infirmity or illegality in the judgment of the trial court, the present appeal fails and is accordingly dismissed,” the judgment declared.

Date of Decson: April 15, 2025