Both witnesses disowned the message in court, and the Supreme Court has held that a Disputed WhatsApp Message Cannot Sustain Murder Conviction in a case that rested wholly on circumstantial evidence.
New Delhi: Setting aside a Chhattisgarh man’s conviction for murder and causing disappearance of evidence, the Supreme Court has acquitted him, observing that a WhatsApp message whose author and basis could not be established, and which both witnesses disowned in court, at best raised suspicion and could not sustain a conviction [Kusumlal Sao v. State of Chhattisgarh].
Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Vijay Bishnoi sat on the Bench that allowed Criminal Appeal No. 4894 of 2026. The judgment, dated October 13, 2026, was written by Justice Misra.
The message and the missing time of death
The Court first dealt with whether the message could be treated as part of the same transaction under Section 6 of the Evidence Act, and answered in the negative because the time of death was not fixed.
“Here the time of death has not been fixed by any substantive evidence, therefore, it is difficult to ascertain whether the message was texted at or about the time of occurrence so as to be part of the same transaction.”
Even if the message were relevant under Section 7, the Court said, all it showed was that a message had travelled from one phone to another. Its conclusion is set out below.
“Thus, the exchange of message between PW-5 and PW-6 does not prove that on the fateful night the deceased was present in the house of the accused and that the accused had assaulted the deceased, it, at best, creates a suspicion against the accused-appellant which by itself is not sufficient to sustain conviction.”
A body in an open field
A man was found dead in an open field on the morning of February 9, 2019, with a motorcycle and a yellow rope beside him. The death was first reported as accidental, but the autopsy opined that it was homicidal.
In the course of the investigation, the mobile phones of two prosecution witnesses, PW-5 and PW-6, were seized. Forensic analysis showed a WhatsApp message passing from PW-5’s phone to PW-6’s phone in the intervening night of February 7 and 8, 2019, which the prosecution said pointed to the appellant’s hand in the killing. It also relied on a disclosure statement that led to the seizure of an iron rod and a screwdriver, and on blood-stained soil and a shirt.
All of this is the prosecution’s case, and the appellant denied the incriminating circumstances and claimed innocence. The Sessions Court convicted him under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code on March 30, 2024 in S.T. No. 08 of 2019, and the High Court of Chhattisgarh at Bilaspur dismissed his appeal in Criminal Appeal No. 1482 of 2024. In the witness box, PW-5 denied knowing anything of the incident and denied sending the message. PW-6 likewise said he knew nothing, but once declared hostile he admitted receiving a WhatsApp message from PW-5.
The test for a circumstantial case
The Bench started from the settled test in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra. The circumstances must be fully established and must point unerringly to the guilt of the accused. They must form a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that the accused committed the crime, and they must exclude every other hypothesis.
There was no evidence of the deceased having been last seen with the accused, since every witness produced to prove that had turned hostile. That left the prosecution leaning heavily on the WhatsApp exchange and the blood-stained articles.
Soil, rod, screwdriver and a possible fall
As for the blood-stained soil, a seizure witness said it was collected only from the spot where the body lay, an open field, and the stains were not tied to the deceased, as no DNA profile matched. The Court said the same of the iron rod and the screwdriver. The two seizure witnesses also gave differing accounts, which, it said, “does not help the prosecution cause”.
The autopsy surgeon called the injuries homicidal but did not rule out that they could have been caused in a fall from a motorcycle. The Court held the defence theory of an accident to be probable and capable of creating doubt.
Acquittal and release
“Accordingly, we allow the appeal and set aside the conviction of the appellant and acquit him of all the charges for which he had been tried. The judgment and order of the High Court and the Trial Court are set aside. The appellant is acquitted of the charges for which he had been tried. He shall be released forthwith unless wanted in any other case.”
What the judgment reaffirms
Digital material, however suggestive, is only as strong as the proof of who created it and what its author actually knew. A message no witness owns, and whose author may have relied on hearsay or assumption, cannot supply the missing link in a chain of circumstances.
The ruling also marks the gap between “may be” and “must be” guilty. Where blood-stained recoveries are not linked to the deceased and an accidental death is not excluded, suspicion, however strong, does not displace the benefit of doubt.
Case Title: Kusumlal Sao v. State of Chhattisgarh [Criminal Appeal No. 4894 of 2026, arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 11542 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Vijay Bishnoi, Supreme Court of India
Date of Judgment: October 13, 2026
Appearances: Yasharth Kant for the appellant; Ankita Sharma for the State of Chhattisgarh