1999 Rape-Murder Case| 'Victim Was Sexually Assaulted & Killed But Accused Being Real Culprits Not Proved': Allahabad HC Acquits 3
The Allahabad High Court recently acquitted three accused in a 1999 rape and murder case concerning a 13-year-old girl as it found that the prosecution was not able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused/appellants were the real culprits. “No doubt that the victim has been sexually assaulted and was strangled to death but it is not proved that the appellants accused...
The Allahabad High Court recently acquitted three accused in a 1999 rape and murder case concerning a 13-year-old girl as it found that the prosecution was not able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused/appellants were the real culprits.
“No doubt that the victim has been sexually assaulted and was strangled to death but it is not proved that the appellants accused are the real culprits and they have committed the offence,” the bench of Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi observed as it allowed the appeal filed by the accused against their conviction by the trial court.
The bench further added that the false implication of the accused based on suspicion or with ulterior motives cannot be ruled out in the case.
Essentially, as per the FIR, on November 30, 1999, the daughter (victim) of the informant had gone to collect the grass wherein the informant, along with three other persons heard her screams and then they saw Surjeet, Arvind, Babloo and Raj Kishore (accused persons) were strangulating the victim by tying her neck with a bed-sheet.
On exhortation, the accused ran away and by the time they reached the victim, she had died. They also saw that the accused persons had committed sexual assault on her as her private part was bleeding and semen spots were present on the clothes.
Following this incident, an FIR was lodged and a trial was conducted, at the end of which, the Additional Sessions Judge/ F.T.C. First, Jalaun convicted the accused persons under Sections 376(2)(g) and 302/34 IPC and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The trial court, in its Judgment and order, heavily placed reliance on the ocular testimony of informant PW 1.
Challenging their conviction, they moved the HC wherein it was their primary contention that out of the four witnesses of facts produced by the prosecution, only the informant (P.W.-1) had supported the prosecution case and the remaining three witnesses, did not support their case.
It was their further submission that no one had witnessed the incident and accused-appellants had been falsely implicated by the informant due to ulterior motives and also, the medical evidence did not support the prosecution’s version.
It was strongly argued that in the postmortem report, except for the ligature mark, no other external injury, had been noted on the body of the victim and this fact contradicts the prosecution’s case that the victim was sexually assaulted in the field.
High Court’s observations
At the outset, the Court noted that the prosecution’s case is based on direct evidence and 4 eye-witnesses of the incident (PW 1 to PW 4) were examined by the prosecution, and out of those 4 PWs, 3 witnesses (PW 2 to PW 4) turned hostile and hence, only the evidence of the first informant (PW 1) was required to be seen.
In this context, the Court noted that though the postmortem report confirmed that the victim was subjected to sexual assault and was strangulated to death, however, the testimony of PW 1, the informant, was not inspiring.
Essentially, in his testimony, PW 1 had said he saw that the two accused were strangulating his daughter with a bed-sheet, tying it around her neck, while one of the accused was sexually assaulting her, lying upon her and the fourth accused was pressing her mouth.
However, the Court found it highly improbable that at a time when one of the accused was engaged in sexual assault, the other accused was strangulating her tying the bed sheet around her neck.
The Court also noted that PW 1 had deposed that he saw that two of the accused were strangulating the victim pulling the bed-sheet tied around her neck, on his exhortation, all the accused ran away from the spot, and the bed-sheet was wrapped around the neck of the victim, however, at the time of spot inspection, the bed sheet was not found tied around the neck, instead it has been found lying at some distance near the dead body.
Against this backdrop, and finding other lacunas in the prosecution’s case including contradiction between the investigating officer’s statement and the FSL report, the Court observed thus:
“From the analysis of the evidence on record, it is clear that the sole testimony of informant P.W.-1, who is a chance witness, is not inspiring and trustworthy. There are serious discrepancies, which makes it highly doubtful that he has seen the occurrence...Their (Accused) false implication on the basis of suspicion or with ulterior motive cannot be ruled out. There is no sufficient evidence on record to prove the prosecution case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Against this backdrop, holding that the finding of guilt returned by the trial Court based on the testimony of PW 1, was unsustainable, the Court set aside the conviction of the appellants accused and acquitted them.
Case title - Arvind Kumar And Another vs. State of U.P. along with a connected matter 2023 LiveLaw (AB) 431
Case Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (AB) 431