Raju Raghu Sadavarte v. State of Maharashtra
Case brief
What is this about?
Keywords/search hooks: Bombay High Court Criminal Appeal No. 1359 of 2024 with Interim Application No. 5395 of 2024, decided 4 February 2026, per Sarang V. Kotwal J. (bench: Sandesh D. Patil J.); appeal against conviction in Sessions Case No. 218 of 2022 (Additional Sessions Judge, Vadgaon, Maval, Pune) for murder (Section 302 IPC) and causing disappearance of evidence (Section 201 IPC); pure circumstantial evidence case; incomplete chain; benefit of doubt; acquittal and release of prisoner from Yerwada Prison on P.R.Bond Rs.15,000 under Section 481 BNSS 2023; insufficiency of motive from trifle quarrel; failure of 'last seen together' where multiple labourer families shared one open space; unreliability of extra judicial confession (drunk accused, ATM incident, witness ignorant of victim's identity, delayed statements — Police statement 27.04.2017, Section 164 CrPC statement 07.06.2017, untraced ATM/credit card); recovery of hammer from open public park not concealed — no authorship of concealment; C.A. Report blood group inconclusive on hammer and clothes; omission to put circumstances in Section 313 CrPC examination vitiates use of blood-on-hammer and blood-group-'B'-on-clothes circumstances; missing chain of custody for deceased's clothes (doctor and constable not examined); injuries possible by any hard blunt heavy object.