Police read him a confession in a language he didn't understand. The Supreme Court just threw out his death sentence.

The police wrote down his 'confession' in Marathi. He only speaks Hindi. The Supreme Court just asked: how can you rely on words he never understood?

On a June evening in 2010, a six-year-old girl vanished from her chawl in Bhayander, Maharashtra, after dinner. Her body was found the next morning, floating face-down in a nearby drain, the water still and murky around her, bearing signs of severe sexual assault and multiple injuries. The police arrested a neighbour, Prakash Nishad, the following day. But the case that sent him to death row would unravel over a language barrier — and a chain of evidence that had more holes than links.

The body in the drain

The girl went missing after dinner on June 11, 2010. Her father searched the chawl, then the streets, his footsteps echoing in the narrow alleys lit by a single flickering bulb. By morning, her body was discovered in a drain, the morning light revealing the horror. The police registered an FIR (a written complaint that starts a police investigation) against an unknown person. Based on information from the victim's father, they arrested Prakash Nishad the next day. He lived in the same chawl, his door just a few steps from where the girl had last been seen.

Three different investigating officers handled the case at different stages, each leaving their own mark on a disjointed file that grew heavier with each transfer. Searches of premises linked to Nishad yielded articles that the prosecution claimed connected him to the crime. The trial court convicted him on all charges — murder, rape, unnatural offences, and destruction of evidence — and imposed the death penalty. The Bombay High Court confirmed both the conviction and the sentence.

But when the case reached the Supreme Court, the bench of Justices Sanjay Karol, B.R. Gavai, and Vikram Nath found a prosecution case riddled with contradictions, gaps, and procedural failures. The most striking: the disclosure statements — the accused's own words that led to recovery of evidence — were recorded in Marathi. Nishad speaks only Hindi. The document, written in an unfamiliar script, sat in the case file, silent and unreadable to the man who was supposed to have dictated it.

When the police wrote in Marathi

The prosecution relied heavily on disclosure statements under Section 27 of the Evidence Act (a provision that allows information given by an accused that leads to discovery of a fact to be used as evidence). The theory was simple: Nishad told the police where to find incriminating articles, and those recoveries proved his guilt.

But there was a problem. The statements were recorded in Marathi. Nishad could not read or understand a single word. The police did not read the statements back to him in Hindi. They did not explain what they had written. The accused sat in silence as his words were transformed into a language he could not access, the ceiling fan in the police station whirring overhead, indifferent to the injustice unfolding below.

The Supreme Court turned to its own precedent in Syed Qasim Razvi v. State of Hyderabad (1953), which held that a confession or disclosure statement must be made in a language the accused understands, and must be read over to him in that language.

The Court held that when a disclosure statement of an accused is recorded in a language totally unknown to him, and its contents are not read over or explained in his vernacular language, the statement cannot be relied upon. Any recovery based on such a statement could not constitute valid discovery under Section 27. The first link in the chain of circumstantial evidence was gone.

Where the DNA broke down

The prosecution's strongest card was DNA evidence. Semen found on the victim's undergarments and vaginal swab was matched to Nishad. But the Supreme Court found the integrity of this evidence compromised at multiple points, like a chain of custody log with missing pages. The case file felt thin in crucial places — crucial documentation simply absent.

First, the police failed to comply with Section 53A of the CrPC (the procedure for medical examination of a person accused of rape). This section requires that samples be collected by a registered medical practitioner and that the examination be conducted in a specific manner. The Court found no evidence that this was done properly. The medical reports, when they arrived, bore the weight of procedural shortcuts.

Second, there were unexplained delays in sending samples for analysis. The chain of custody — the documentation that tracks who handled a piece of evidence from collection to court — was missing. The Court noted that DNA evidence is opinion evidence whose probative value varies from case to case. It cannot form the solitary basis for determining guilt, particularly when the integrity of samples is compromised. The laboratory reports, sitting in the file, could not bridge the gaps left by the investigators.

The Court applied the principles from Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra (1984), which laid down the test for circumstantial evidence: the circumstances must be fully established, they must point unerringly to the guilt of the accused, and they must exclude every other hypothesis. The chain must be complete. Here, the chain had snapped.

Contradictions that sank the case

The recovery of incriminating articles was itself riddled with contradictions. Different prosecution witnesses gave different versions of what was recovered, from where, and when. Some recoveries were uncorroborated. Material witnesses were not examined. The investigation had gaps that the prosecution could not explain. The chawl's residents, who might have seen something, were never called to testify.

The Court also noted that three different investigating officers had handled the case. This lack of continuity contributed to the breakdown in the chain of custody and the procedural failures. The prosecution could not establish each link in the chain beyond reasonable doubt. The case, built on circumstance, had crumbled under scrutiny.

Applying the test from Sharad Birdhichand Sarda, the Court held that the circumstances did not unerringly point to Nishad's guilt to the exclusion of all other hypotheses. The case was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. The Court also drew on Indrajit Das v. State of Tripura (2023) and Siju Kurian v. State of Karnataka (2023), reinforcing the principle that procedural lapses in evidence collection cannot be glossed over. Other precedents cited included Krishan Kumar Malik v. State of Haryana (2011), Rajendra Prahladrao Wasnik v. State of Maharashtra (2019), Pattu Rajan v. State of T.N. (2019), and Manoj v. State of M.P. (2023) — each underscoring the high bar for circumstantial cases.

The acquittal

The Supreme Court allowed the appeals and quashed the conviction. Nishad was acquitted of all charges — Sections 302 (murder), 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural offences), and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code. The death sentence and life imprisonment were set aside. The Court ordered that Nishad be set at liberty forthwith if not required in any other case.

The judgment was delivered on May 19, 2023, thirteen years after the crime. For the family of the six-year-old victim, the acquittal means the case remains unsolved. For the criminal justice system, it is a reminder that procedure exists to protect the innocent — and that cutting corners can unravel even the most serious cases. The drain where the girl's body was found has long been cleaned, but the questions raised by this case linger.

THE PLAY: If a disclosure statement is recorded in a language the accused does not understand, and its contents are not read over or explained in his vernacular language, the statement cannot be relied upon — and any recovery based on it is invalid under Section 27 of the Evidence Act.