Thane Court Acquits Wife and Paramour in Husband's Murder Case Due to Insufficient Circumstantial Evidence

A judge in Thane court has ruled that prosecution failed to establish a case based on circumstantial evidence in a 2018 murder case.

The Thane court has cleared a woman and her alleged lover of charges related to the murder of her husband in 2018, stating that the prosecution was unable to prove their case which relied entirely on circumstantial evidence.

Principal District and Sessions Judge S B Agrawal delivered the verdict on Friday, noting that despite evidence suggesting an extramarital relationship between the accused and their questionable behavior following the incident, there was insufficient evidence to conclude they had committed the murder of the victim.

The defendants, 34-year-old Priya Gopi Naik and 32-year-old Mahesh Govind Karale, had faced multiple charges including murder, criminal conspiracy, administering stupefying substances, and evidence tampering.

According to the prosecution, the two accused allegedly murdered Priya's husband, Gopi Kisan Naik, in Thane city on December 28, 2018, motivated by their illicit relationship. The prosecution claimed they administered a stupefying substance to the victim before murdering him and attempting to conceal evidence.

The case began when a police sub-inspector received notification from Civil Hospital that Gopi Kisan Naik had been brought in by his wife following an alleged accident in the Waghbil tunnel, after which she departed the hospital.

After the victim's death, a postmortem examination revealed head injuries from a blunt object and signs of strangulation, which led authorities to register a murder case. The prosecution alleged the accused attempted to mislead investigators by claiming the death resulted from an accident.

In his ruling, the judge emphasized that cases based on circumstantial evidence require that each circumstance be fully established and consistent only with the hypothesis of guilt.

"These circumstances must be conclusive in nature and exclude every other hypothesis, creating a chain of evidence so complete that it leaves no reasonable ground for conclusions consistent with the innocence of the accused," the court stated.

The judge further noted that even though evidence of an extramarital relationship existed, the prosecution needed to establish that this relationship was known to the deceased and caused conflicts between the accused wife and the victim to establish it as a motive.

The court found witness testimony on these aspects too vague to safely accept as establishing a motive for the crime.

"The prosecution's allegations regarding sleeping pills and phenyl lose significance since none of these substances were found in the victim's body," the court observed.

The judge also pointed out that if the accused had indeed committed the murder, there would be no logical reason for them to take the victim to the hospital, as his survival would have had serious consequences for them.

"It cannot be established beyond reasonable doubt that the deceased died a homicidal death rather than from falling in the bathroom or suffering an accident," the court concluded.

The judgment ultimately determined that despite evidence of an extramarital relationship between the accused and their suspicious conduct following the incident, there was insufficient evidence to conclude they had committed the murder or any of the other alleged offenses.