29 51. Counsel for the appellants urged that in the present case, crucial circumstances, such as Neha’s arrest (which constituted the breakthrough in the investigation), the narration and deposition of the chance witness PW-10, and the inconsistences relating to the recoveries, as well as the expert reports, lead to grave doubts. It was submitted that in cases based on circumstantial evidence, the five “golden principles” enunciated by this court in Sharad Birdichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra25 have to be fully established and that the court should be convinced that the accused “must be” guilty and not “may be” guilty. Further, the facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except that the accused is guilty. The circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency. The circumstances should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved, and there must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused. 52. It was submitted that the complete “blackout” of the role of DW-1, in the face of her admission to being involved with the investigation, her receiving an out-of-turn promotion for solving the case, her deposition that she had analysed the CDRs which were never produced, or relied on, and her involvement before Neha’s arrest, as well as her involvement during the arrest and subsequent questioning, all pointed to grave doubts about the circumstances which actually led to Neha’s arrest. It was strongly urged that this cast a doubt on her entire role. Likewise, the piecemeal recoveries affected on two different dates, at the behest of the three accused, the improbability of the accused retaining incriminating articles like weapons, even while allegedly getting rid of clothes, shoes, and vehicles etc., cast doubts and suspicions about the genuineness of recovery of the articles. It was argued that all this, coupled with the 25 (1984) 4 SCC 116