India, July 14 -- Nineteen years after a banker was found dead and police claimed his wife conspired with her alleged lover to murder him, the Supreme Court has exonerated the woman, ruling that suspicion, however grave, cannot replace legal proof.

A bench of justices Sanjay Karol and Prasanna B Varale upheld the acquittal of Monika Kiran Suryawanshi, refusing to revive murder and conspiracy charges against her. She was accused of killing her husband, Kiran Suryawanshi, a bank employee, in February 2007 over an alleged extramarital affair.

The court held that the prosecution failed to establish an unbroken chain of circumstances necessary to secure a conviction in a case based entirely on circumstantial evidence. "The chain of circumsta...