In the case of Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharastra, AIR 1984 SC 1622, the Apex Court has laid down the tests which are prerequisites before conviction should be recorded, which are as under:
i. The circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established. The circumstances concerned ‘must or should’ and not ‘may be’ established;
ii. The facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say, they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except that the accused is guilty;
iii. The circumstances should be of conclusive nature and tendency;
iv. They should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved; and
v. There must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused.