Shivaji Sahebrao Bobade & Anr vs State Of Maharashtra on 27 August, 1973
It may be noted here that this Court indicated that the
circumstances concerned “must or should” and not “may
be” established. There is not only a grammatical but a
legal distinction between “may be proved” and “must be
or should be proved” as was held by this Court in Shivaji
Sahabrao Bobade v. State of Maharashtra [(1973) 2 SCC
793 : 1973 SCC (Cri) 1033 : 1973 Crl LJ 1783] where the
observations were made: [SCC para 19, p. 807: SCC (Cri)
p. 1047]
“Certainly, it is a primary principle that the
accused must be and not merely may be guilty before a
court can convict and the mental distance between ‘may
be’ and ‘must be’ is long and divides vague conjectures
from sure conclusions.”
(2) the facts so established should be consistent only with
the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say,
they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis
except that the accused is guilty,
(3) the circumstances should be of a conclusive nature
and tendency,
(4) they should exclude every possible hypothesis except
the one to be proved, and
(5) there must be a chain of evidence so complete as not
to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion
consistent with the innocence of the accused and must
show that in all human probability the act must have
been done by the accused.”