Lack Of CDR From Rural Telephone Exchange In 2003 Not Material : Supreme Court Upholds Conviction In Kidnapping Case

The Supreme Court recently observed that non-production of the Call Detail Record (CDR) would not be fatal to the prosecution's case, when the substantive oral evidence remains cogent, credible, and completely unimpeached.

A bench of Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Prasanna B. Varale upheld the conviction of two individuals, who were accused of kidnapping for a ransom under Section 346A IPC, in connection with an FIR registered in 2003.

The Appellant-accused contended that the non-production of the CDR for ransom demand would prove fatal to the prosecution's case. They claimed that a Section 65-B certificate is fatal to the prosecution's claim of a ransom demand. It was argued that no specifics of the phone call were documented.

Rejecting such an argument, the judgment authored by Justice Varale said that when there exists other evidence corroborating the demand of ransom, then mere non-production of CDR, that too during the period of 2003, would not be ground to overturn the conviction.

The Court noted that the testimonies of PW-1 (father of victim), along with PWs 2 and 3 about the fact regarding the ransom demand over the landline phone remained consistent, credible and unimpeached; therefore the same would be sufficient to prove the guilt in absence of a CDR.

“PW-1 clearly deposed in his cross-examination that upon returning home at 7:00 PM after lodging the FIR and conducting a search, his daughters informed him that a ransom call demanding Rs. 5 25 Lakhs had been received at their working home telephone around 11:00 am that very day. This is fully corroborated by the testimonies of PW.2 and PW.3, who were present in the house and testified about the demand of Rs. 5 Lakhs. Most importantly, PW.7 (the Investigating Officer) deposed that PW.1 informed him about this Rs. 5 Lakh ransom call on 07.08.2003, and the I.O. subsequently recorded the statement of Santosh Kaur (the victim's mother) regarding this specific call.”, the court observed.

“The lack of a CDR from a rural telephone exchange in 2003 cannot be permitted to paralyze the criminal justice system when the substantive oral evidence remains cogent, credible, and completely unimpeached. Therefore, the High Court rightly concluded that the demand for ransom was established beyond reasonable doubt.”, the court added.

Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed.

Cause Title: HARJINDRA SINGH ETC. VERSUS THE STATE OF U.P.

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 598

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Appearance:

For Appellant(s) Mr. Aarif Ali, Adv. Mr. Rizwan Ahmad , AOR Mr. Pankaj Tiwari, Adv. Mr. Chand Qureshi, Adv. Mr. Mujahid Ahmed, Adv. Mr. Md. Imran Siddhique, Adv. Mr. Mohd. Tauheed, Adv. Mr. Shah Alam, Adv. Mr. Raj Kumar Yadav, Adv. Mr. Mohd. Faiz Ahmed, Adv. Mr. Himanshu Gupta, Adv.

For Respondent(s) Ms. Sakshi Kakkar, AOR (Argued by) Mr. Vikas Bansal, Adv. Ms. Anusha Rathore, Adv.