Cuttack: Orissa High Court has acquitted four persons sentenced to life imprisonment nearly 14 years ago in a murder case after finding that the trial court had based the conviction order on "conjecture and suspicion".

The case involved killing of a five-year-old boy at Kharianta in Rajkanika police limits in December 2001. After trial, the court of additional sessions judge, Kendrapara, convicted four persons - Gobardhan Sutar, Rahas Behari Moharanan, Kartik Chandra Thatoi and Nityananda Sutar - and sentenced them to imprisonment for life on March 8, 2004.All four had challenged the verdict in the high court in the same year.

"We are of the view that the circumstances do not form a complete chain so as to unerringly point towards the guilt of the appellants. There are several infirmities and irregularities in the investigation as well as in holding the trial by the public prosecutor," the division bench of Justice S.K. Sahoo and Justice K.R. Mohapatra observed.

"The reasoning assigned by the trial court in convicting the appellants seems to be based on conjecture and suspicion, which have no place in the matter of legal proof of guilt of accused persons in a criminal trial, and we are of the view that the impugned verdict is nothing but a sheer moral conviction," the bench further observed in its January 27 order. "Therefore, the impugned judgment and order of conviction of all the appellants passed by the trial court and the sentence passed there under is not sustainable in the eye of law and the same is hereby set aside and the appellants are acquitted of all the charges," the bench ruled.