India, July 17 -- A missing body is not a missing murder. The Supreme Court has ruled that an accused can be convicted of murder even if the victim's body is never recovered, saying the law requires proof that a crime was committed -- not production of the corpse and warning that any such requirement would allow killers who successfully dispose of a body to escape justice.

The verdict came as a bench of justices Sanjay Karol and Prasanna B Varale upheld the life sentence of an Assam man convicted of killing a 10-year-old adopted girl whose body was allegedly thrown into a river and could never be traced.

The court upheld the concurrent findings of the trial court and the Gauhati high court, ruling that the prosecution had established th...