Cash recovery alone cannot prove stolen property: SC

Time of India

2 days ago

Hyderabad: The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the mere recovery of cash from an accused cannot automatically be treated as stolen property. Acquitting a Warangal-based trader convicted of "receiving stolen property," the court observed that such an inference must be backed by clear and convincing evidence.
The trader, who was earlier acquitted of theft, had been convicted by both a trial court and the Telangana high court for allegedly receiving a stolen sum. A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta, however, set aside the conviction, holding that both courts had erred in law and fact.
The prosecution case was that the trader received part of ₹2.9 lakh allegedly stolen in Dec 2005 after the key accused murdered his former employee.
While the trial court convicted both men in 2008, and the high court upheld the verdict in 2024, the Supreme Court noted that neither court had sufficient grounds to link the recovered money to the alleged theft.
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"The cash seized had no special or distinct identification marks to establish it as stolen property," the bench observed. It added that the high court wrongly placed the burden of proof on the accused to explain possession of the money.
"The high court has grossly erred by placing a reverse burden of proof on the accused, which is alien to our criminal jurisprudence," the judges held.
The bench further emphasised that once the accused were acquitted of theft, their conviction for receiving stolen cash was legally unsustainable. "If the charge of theft does not stand, there can be no conviction for receiving stolen property," the court ruled.
Concluding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, the Supreme Court acquitted the trader, who was already on bail.
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