STATE OF A.P. vs SHAIK MAZHAR — Crl.A. No. 312/1998

Summary The Supreme Court allowed the State of A.P.'s appeal, set aside the High Court's acquittal of respondent Shaik Mazhar, and restored his conviction and life sentence for murdering 10-year-old Saida Sadia in 1992. The Court found the trial judge's careful analysis of circumstantial evidence—particularly the accused's extra-judicial confession to a witness and multiple eyewitness accounts placing him with the victim—sufficient to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, criticizing the High Court's hasty, one-paragraph reversal. The Court directed Mazhar to surrender and serve his remaining sentence. This case analysis is maintained by casestatus.in based on publicly available court records.