New Delhi: The Supreme Court recently set aside the conviction of a man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his wife’s murder, noting that the orders finding him guilty were based on “incorrect and incomplete appreciation of evidence”, resulting in a travesty of justice.The order, pronounced by Justices Sanjay Karol and B.R. Gavai, related to the murder of Deomatiya Devi in Latehar district of Jharkhand in 1988. Her husband Guna Mahto was found guilty of murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code by a Daltonganj sessions court.The prosecution had argued that Mahto murdered his wife and dumped her dead body in the well of the village with an intent to “cause disappearance of the evidence related to the crime”. He approached the police with a fabricated story and reported her wife to be ‘missing’, the protection said, according to LiveLaw.The Supreme Court said that it is a settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that in a case revolving around circumstantial evidence, the prosecution must prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The circumstances relied upon must point only towards one hypothesis, that is, the guilt of the accused alone and none else, it said.But in the present case, the testimonies of ten prosecution witnesses, “when considered independently or even collectively” do not point “anything towards the guilt of the accused”, the court said.“In the instant case, as we have noted earlier, the Investigation Officer was not examined. We find that there is no evidence, ocular or documentary, relating to the factum of the accused having caused the disappearance of evidence by giving information to the police in order to prevent himself from being prosecuted in relation to the murder of his own wife,” the order, passed on March 16, reads.The courts which found him guilty “proceeded with the acquired assumption of the guilt of the accused for the reason that he was lastly seen with the deceased, and lodged a false report”, the Supreme Court said. “Doubt and suspicion cannot form basis of guilt of the accused. The circumstances linking the accused to the crime are not proven at all, much less beyond reasonable doubt. There is no discovery of any fact linking the accused to the crime sought to be proved, much less, established by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt,” the court said.The court said: “Hence, in our considered view, the courts below have seriously erred in passing the order of conviction based on incorrect and incomplete appreciation of evidence, causing serious prejudice to the accused, also resulting into travesty of justice.”The judges said that in normal course of proceedings, the court “does not interfere with the concurrent finding of facts reached by both the courts below”. But in exceptional cases, when concurrent findings are absurd and led to a travesty of justice, “it is our duty to rectify [the] miscarriage of justice”, the order says.