New Delhi, July 15 -- Nineteen years after a banker was found dead and police alleged his wife conspired with her 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. Suryawanshi was accused of killing her husband, an ICICI 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 circumstances is...