SC says call records alone not conclusive evidence, clears wife of husband’s murder

Nearly two decades after a banker was found dead and investigators accused his wife of plotting the crime with her alleged lover, the Supreme Court acquitted the woman, saying the mere creation of phone call records cannot replace the “physical evidence” needed to convict of murder.

A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and Prasanna B. Varale upheld the acquittal of Monika Kiran Suryawanshi and refused to revive the charges of murder and criminal conspiracy against her. She was accused of orchestrating the murder of her husband Kiran Suryawanshi, a bank employee, in February 2007 over an alleged extra-marital affair.

“Motive is weak”

“Mere production of phone records is no substitute for physical evidence of an illicit affair leading to murder. The motive is therefore inherently weak and insufficient to convict of murder,” the Bench observed while dismissing appeals filed by the Maharashtra government against the Bombay High Court’s 2010 judgment acquitting the accused.

Monika, who married Kiran in 2001, allegedly had an extramarital affair with her neighbor Prakash, according to the prosecution. It was alleged that the two along with another associate conspired to murder Kiran. The prosecution alleged that Monika first administered sedatives to her husband in the form of tablets and injections before he was fatally attacked with a whetstone in the couple’s apartment.

The prosecution further alleged that the body was wrapped in plastic and a sheet before being transported on a motorcycle for disposal. An alleged attempt to dispose of the body was thwarted when a patrolling police constable spotted two men carrying a suspicious bundle on a motorbike. Upon closer inspection, the constable noticed a human leg protruding from the bundle, leading to the recovery of Kiran’s body and the immediate arrest of both men.

A Sessions Court in 2008 convicted Monika and the two co-accused of murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment. However, the Bombay High Court overturned the conviction in 2010, ruling that the circumstantial evidence relied on by the prosecution was too weak to support a murder conviction.

“No hard evidence”

The judgment, authored by Judge Varale, said that “at the highest level” the prosecution’s evidence only suggested “one-sided insanity” on the part of the co-accused. There was “no convincing evidence”, the court noted, to show that Monika reciprocated those feelings or harbored any animosity towards her husband.

The court also poked holes in the prosecution’s reliance on the call records to prove Monica’s alleged role in the conspiracy. While the prosecution claimed that Monika phoned Prakash after making sure her husband had fallen asleep, the Bench noted a “complete absence of any outgoing call” from Monika’s mobile phone with Prakash on the night of the incident. Instead, the call logs reflected incoming calls from Prakash’s number to Monica’s phone, supporting the defense that Kiran had inadvertently left his cell phone at home and called from Prakash’s handset. The court therefore held that the FIR’s claim that Monika had summoned Prakash was “not supported by the digital trail”.

The court also found a fundamental discrepancy in the indictment’s case. While it was claimed that Kiran was beaten to death in his bed, the post-mortem report revealed that no blood was found on the mattresses, sheets or pillows inside the house. “This physical impossibility speaks volumes and completely contradicts the basic story of the prosecution that deceased Kiran Suryawanshi was brutally beaten to death in his bed,” the judgment said.

Critical to the probe

The Bench was equally critical of the manner in which the investigation was conducted. A significant part of the prosecution’s case rested on the alleged recovery of a bloody whetstone, a syringe and some items of clothing from Monica. However, the court found that these recoveries suffered from serious procedural defects, which reduced their probative value.

“The prosecution’s case against the accused for murder and conspiracy, resting solely on circumstantial evidence, suffers from fundamental lacunae, namely, the failure to ascertain the motive… The chain of circumstances is broken and the hypothesis of guilt is not exclusively established,” the Bench added.

Accordingly, the court upheld the judgment of the High Court acquitting Monika of the charges of murder and criminal conspiracy. However, it upheld the conviction of Prakash and another co-accused under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code for causing disappearance of evidence.

The judges pointed out that the evidence proved conclusively that the two men were apprehended while transporting Kiran’s body on a motorcycle in the early hours of February 15, 2007. Their arrest at the scene left no doubt that they were involved in an attempt to tamper with evidence. Since the two men had already been sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for an offense under Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code, the court saw no reason to interfere with the High Court’s order ordering their release.

Published – 14 Jul 2026 19:27 IST