[ad_1]
New Delhi: The Supreme Court acquitted three men sentenced to death for the gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman in Delhi’s Chawla area in 2012, stating that the prosecution had failed to provide leading, strong, clinching and clear evidence, including matters related to DNA profiling. and Call Detail Record (CDR) against the accused.
The three were accused of abducting, gang-raping and brutally killing the woman in February 2012. His mutilated body was found three days after the abduction.
A bench of Chief Justice UU Lalit and Justices S Rabindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi acquitted the convicts in a 40-page order on Monday.
“Evidence relating to arrest of accused, their identification, discovery and recovery of incriminating articles, identification of vehicles, seizure and sealing of articles and collection of samples, medical and scientific evidence, reports. DNA profiling, evidence related to CDR etc. have not been proved by the prosecution, clinching and clear evidence points to the guilt of the accused much less, the bench said.
It is said that the possibility of tampering with the collected samples cannot be ruled out.
“The prosecution has to establish the charges leveled against them beyond reasonable doubt, which the prosecution has failed to do in the instant case, as a result, the court has no option but to acquit the accused, though involved in a very heinous incident. Crime, it said.
It is true that if the accused involved in heinous crimes are not punished or acquitted then there may be a kind of agony and despair in the society and especially in the families of the victims, but the law does not condone it. The court can punish the accused on the basis of moral conviction or only on suspicion, the bench said.
“The Court is constrained to make these observations as the Court has noticed many glaring errors during the trial It is noticed from the record that out of the witnesses examined by the prosecution, 10 important witnesses were not cross-examined and many other important witnesses were not adequately cross-examined by the defense counsel. It may be recalled that Section 165 of the Indian Evidence Act gives the trial court unbridled power to put any question to the witnesses at any stage to reveal the truth, it said.
The bench added, in the instant case, the material witnesses examined by the prosecution were either not cross-examined or not adequately examined and the trial court also acted as a passive umpire, we find that the accused were deprived of their rights. A fair trial, the trial court also failed to find out the truth… The accused were acquitted of the charges framed against them with reasonable doubt.
The bench, however, said that even if the accused were acquitted, the family members of the victims would be entitled to compensation.
In 2014, a trial court sentenced the three accused to death, terming the case as rare.
The Delhi High Court later upheld the verdict.
According to the prosecution, the woman worked in the Cyber City area of Gurgaon and was a resident of Uttarakhand. He was returning from his work and was near his home when three men picked him up in a car.
When she did not return home, her parents filed a missing person’s report, the prosecution said, adding that the woman’s mutilated and decomposing body was found in a village in Haryana’s Rewari.
Police found multiple injuries on the woman’s body. Further investigation and autopsy revealed that she was attacked with car tools, glass bottles, metal objects and other weapons. They said that she was also raped.
Police arrested three people in connection with the crime and said the accused allegedly retaliated after a woman rejected his proposal.
[ad_2]
Source link