Citation: Waris v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 2026 INSC 1050.
The Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence of the appellant for the sexual assault and murder of his six-year-old step-daughter inside their home, ruling that the consistent and credible testimony of a sole related eyewitness requires no independent corroboration. Additionally, the court emphasized that when a heinous crime is committed within the private confines of a shared household, the burden shifts to the resident accused under Section 106 of the Evidence Act to offer a plausible explanation for how the tragedy occurred.
The case stems from a tragic incident where a man named Waris repeatedly sexually abused and subsequently throttled his six-year-old step-daughter to death inside their home. The victim’s health had progressively deteriorated due to the continuous abuse, and on the day of the murder, the mother witnessed the appellant strangling the child after he refused to seek medical help.
Following the crime, the appellant attempted to bypass proper medical checks and rushed to bury the body, but the mother demanded accountability. The post-mortem report later confirmed that the young girl died from asphyxia due to throttling alongside physical trauma matching recent sexual assault.
the Supreme Court held the following legal principles:
- Evidentiary Value of a Sole Eyewitness: The testimony of a single eyewitness—even if they are a related witness—is entirely sufficient to sustain a conviction without needing corroboration, provided their core account is found to be completely reliable and credible.
- Burden of Proof in a Shared Household: When a crime takes place within the privacy of a home where only the accused and the victim reside, a heavy evidentiary burden rests upon the inmate (the accused) to offer a plausible explanation for how the incident occurred, pursuant to Section 106 of the Evidence Act.
The Supreme Court upheld the appellant’s conviction for the sexual assault and murder of the child, but commuted his death sentence to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life without the possibility of remission, directing that all substantive sentences run concurrently.
Supreme Court provided clear reasons for commuting the death sentence to imprisonment for the remainder of natural life without remission:
1. Failure to Prove Lack of Reformation: The Court emphasized that the State bears the burden of establishing that an accused person is completely beyond reform, and in this case, the prosecution failed to produce any evidence proving that the appellant could not be rehabilitated.
2. Availability of an Intermediate Punishment: The Court noted that the option of life imprisonment for the remainder of one’s natural life without remission serves as an adequate and severe punishment (second only to death) that sufficiently protects society while preserving the possibility of moral reform. Therefore, the death penalty was not “unquestionably foreclosed” as the only alternative.
3. Error in Lower Court’s Assessment: The Supreme Court pointed out that the High Court erred by evaluating the mitigating circumstances and the “crime-test/criminal-test” incorrectly (effectively assessing it at zero percent), thus failing to properly weigh the individual mitigating factors of the accused alongside the gravity of the crime.
