The Supreme Court has ordered Rs 6 Lakh Compensation to a man who spent six years in jail as an undertrial in an Agra kidnapping and murder case, after finding that the Uttar Pradesh Police did not carry out “even a rudimentary investigation”.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday directed the State of Uttar Pradesh to pay Rs 6 lakh to a man who was held as an undertrial for six years in a kidnapping and murder case in which he was eventually acquitted, saying six years had been erased from his life “on the strength of a concocted story built on mere surmises and conjectures” [Arun @ Deepak v. State of U.P.].
A Bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran passed the judgment, authored by Justice Vinod Chandran, while disposing of the petitioner’s special leave petition, which had come before it as a plea for bail. The Court opened by calling it “a classic case of how an investigation should not be proceeded with”.
How the case reached here
The case arose from FIR No. 367 of 2019 registered at Police Station Achhnera in Agra district under Sections 364, 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code. The informant had reported that his son went missing on October 18, 2019 while returning home from his workplace at Kiraoli Tehsil, and later told the police that the son had been abducted from the Tehsil gate. On the basis of CCTV footage and the confession of a co-accused, the police arrested the petitioner and one Lalit Kishore. The petitioner was never named in the FIR or in the informant’s Section 161 statement, and he remained in custody from November 14, 2019.
On March 23, 2026, while hearing his bail plea, the Supreme Court noted that he had been in jail since 2019 in a case resting entirely on circumstantial evidence and directed the trial court to complete the trial within three months. Lalit Kishore died during the trial and a third accused, his mother Shalini, was absconding, so the petitioner alone faced trial.
The trial court acquitted him, finding that none of the four circumstances relied on by the prosecution, namely an alleged ransom demand, the confessions, the “last seen” theory and the electronic evidence, had been proved. The Supreme Court then called for the trial court’s judgment, which ran to more than 100 pages in Hindi and had to be translated.
What the Court found in the investigation
The Bench said it was “appalled at the manner in which the investigation was carried out”. Only six witnesses were examined. The bones recovered, said to be charred remains, were never identified as those of the missing man: the FSL result was not disclosed at trial and no DNA sample was taken from the father to match them, even though the doctor told the court such an examination was needed. The postmortem could not establish the cause or time of death.
The Court also noted that the alleged ransom demand of Rs 50 lakh was never reported to the police and surfaced for the first time in court; that the CCTV footage and call records were not supported by a certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act; that the trial court found the footage unclear; that the motorcycle recovered was never produced at trial; that no attempt was made to trace the petrol pump where 55 litres of petrol were allegedly bought to burn the body; and that no disclosure statement under Section 27 of the Evidence Act was recorded before the recoveries.
“Six years have been erased”
“It is unfortunate that despite no evidence against the petitioner herein, he was imprisoned for six years as an undertrial. Based on a slipshod investigation, a haphazard prosecution was carried out, which resulted, fortunately in the acquittal of the accused.”
The Bench added that “not even a rudimentary investigation was carried out” and that the investigating agency took no steps to expedite the trial against the petitioner even after one accused had died and another was absconding. It said investigating and prosecuting agencies “exist not merely to, and by whatever means bring in a conviction”, and must ensure justice to the accused as well.
“We come across such travesty of justice in many matters, but in some, so blatant and shocking, as in this case, which requires reparation to the accused, who in turn is a victim of the system.”
The directions
The Court directed the State to pay Rs 6,00,000 to the petitioner within one month, describing the amount as “paltry in comparison to the years spent in custody”. If it is not paid in time, it will carry interest at 18 per cent a year. Saying “the State Police would do well to educate their officers in the process of investigation”, the Bench directed that a copy of the judgment be sent to the Director General of Police and the Home Secretary of Uttar Pradesh.
The legal position
Monetary compensation for unlawful loss of liberty is a public law remedy the Supreme Court has used since Rudul Sah v. State of Bihar (1983), in which a man kept in prison for years after his acquittal was awarded compensation under Article 32, and which was developed in Nilabati Behera v. State of Orissa (1993). On electronic evidence, the Court has held in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal (2020) that a Section 65B certificate is a condition for admitting a copy of an electronic record, which is why the uncertified CCTV footage and call records carried no weight here.
Why the judgment matters
The judgment treats a long undertrial detention that ends in acquittal as more than an unfortunate outcome. Even though the matter before it was only a bail plea, the Court examined the trial record and treated the absence of basic investigative steps, such as identifying the remains, proving electronic evidence and recording disclosure statements, as a failure for which the State must pay.
It also places a duty on the police to move a trial forward against an accused who is in custody, rather than let it stall because co-accused have died or absconded. The direction to send the judgment to the DGP and the Home Secretary, with a call to educate officers, makes it an institutional warning to the Uttar Pradesh Police and not only relief for one man. The case against the absconding co-accused has not been tried, and any allegations against her remain untested.
Case Title: Arun @ Deepak v. State of U.P. [Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No. 4859 of 2026; 2026 INSC 1150]
Bench: Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran, Supreme Court of India
Date of Judgment: October 26, 2026
Appearances: Kartikeya Bhargava, AOR, for the petitioner; Sarvesh Singh Baghel, AOR, with Ramesh Thakur, Shaurya Krishna and Shivranjani Ralawata, Advocates, for the State of Uttar Pradesh