After 26 years, the Delhi High Court has delivered significant relief to two individuals entangled in a murder case. The court acquitted them, overturning their conviction and life imprisonment sentences.

Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Manoj Jain, presiding over the case, emphasized that the appellants cannot be deemed guilty solely based on being last seen with the deceased.

The court said that the accused and the deceased were working together and the "last seen theory" of the prosecution should be applied in its entirety, keeping in mind the antecedent and subsequent circumstances. The bench said that the court is of the view that it would not be safe to convict the accused on the basis of the circumstances of the last time they were seen together, which has not been completely proved.

Making this observation, the Court allowed the appeal of the appellants against the trial court's decision of October 2001. The court said that the appellants were working with the deceased, hence, their living together cannot be called unusual.

The body of the deceased was found on a railway track in July 1997 and the appellants were arrested after a few days. The prosecution alleged that the deceased was murdered because he came to know about the illicit relationship of one of the appellants with a woman.

The life sentences of the appellants were suspended by the High Court in 2003 and 2004. Both were migrant laborers and lived in slums near Nizamuddin railway station.