"The case against the accused persons is that they assaulted and killed several of their relatives, including their father, mother, brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece, and then fled the house.

The key circumstances against the accused are: eyewitness testimonies; presence of independent witnesses during the incident (villagers who had gathered around the house); recovery (of weapons) recorded in the arrest-cum-recovery memo in the presence of public witnesses; recovery (of blood-stained clothes) discovered by independent witnesses; fimgerprints taken from these recovered items; motive (deterioration of relations among the family and division of respective properties).

The trial court convicted the accused persons and the wife of one of the accused, and awarded the death sentence, on 11.01.2016. The High Court acquitted the wife but maintained the order of conviction and sentence for the accused, on 18.05.2018. The appeal before the Supreme Court was filed to challenge their conviction, on the grounds that the wife had been acquitted by the High Court, while the accused’s death sentence had been confirmed. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and acquitted the accused on 15.12.2021.

This is an important case, as it emphasises the importance of subjecting the evidence of ‘related’ or ‘interested’ witnesses to greater care and caution, generally through independent corroboration, particularly if a death sentence is awarded. It has has good language on corroborating the reliability of the eyewitness testimonies against a site plan that was submitted, and held that they could not have witnessed what they claimed to. "