162 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2023] 8 S.C.R. A 20. PW 2, the mother of the prosecutrix, while corroborating the testimony of her husband, added that till 14.6.2010 she was not aware as to who had assaulted and killed her daughter. However, in Court, she testified to having given the appellant a match box, upon his request, in the early hours of 12.6.2010. B 21. PW 3, while corroborating the version of PW 1 and PW 2, only added that finding the prosecutrix not to have returned home, he thought that perhaps she had gone to the neighbour’s house to watch television. On the morning of 12.6.2010, a neighbour - whom he does not name - informed PW 2 of the dead body of the prosecutrix lying in a “gutter”. C 22. It is to be noted that none of the relatives have disclosed either the complicity of the appellant in the crime or the reason for their suspicion towards him, particularly on 14.6.2010 which was two days after the incident. D E 23. The law on circumstantial evidence is well settled. When a case is governed by such evidence, the evidence must point singularly to the guilt of the appellant, closing out the possibility of all other hypotheses. 24. The locus classicus on the subject is Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra1. A recent judgement of this Court authored by one of us (Vikram Nath, J.) has highlighted the well settled law on circumstantial evidence in Indrajit Das v. State of Tripura2, reiterating the golden principles, as under : “10. The present one is a case of circumstantial evidence as no one has seen the commission of crime. The law in the case of circumstantial evidence is well settled. The leading case being Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra. According to it, the circumstances should be of a definite tendency unerringly pointing towards the guilt of the accused; the circumstances taken cumulatively should form a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that within all human probability the crime was committed by the accused and they should be incapable of explanation on any hypothesis other than that of the guilt of the accused and inconsistent with his innocence. The said principle set out in the case of Sharad Birdhichand F G 1 2 H (1984) 4 SCC 116 2023 SCC OnLine SC 201