Himachal double murder acquittal upheld: the Supreme Court dismissed the State’s appeal, finding the last-seen witnesses unreliable, the DNA match inconclusive and the failure to collect mobile tower locations a serious investigational lapse.
The Patna High Court acquitted Ranjit Mahto, sentenced to life for a 2005 double murder in a bus firing in Begusarai, holding that the sole eyewitness was not wholly reliable, an injured witness and a jail register contradicted her presence, Section 34 IPC could not bridge the gap, and the police investigation was lacking.
The Patna High Court acquitted Rajesh Gupta, sentenced to life for the 2003 kidnapping and murder of a 10-year-old boy in Saharsa, holding that the alleged extra-judicial confession was never put to him under Section 313 CrPC, the last-seen evidence was weak, the motive flimsy, and the Investigating Officer was never examined.
The Gujarat High Court has dismissed the State’s appeal against an acquittal under the POCSO Act, holding that a DNA profiling report exhibited only through the investigating officer, without examining the scientific expert, is inadmissible, and that the hostile victim’s testimony left nothing else to prove the charge.
A victim’s appeal against an order of acquittal passed by a Magistrate lies to the Court of Session, and not to the High Court, the Supreme Court held, clarifying the effect of the proviso to Section 413 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita on a victim’s right of appeal. New Delhi: The Supreme Court has […]
Acquitting five accused in a 2010 attempt-to-murder case, a Bengaluru special court found the investigation “deliberately defective,” observing that a poor, mentally-ill man appeared to have been made a “scapegoat” and arrested without any definite basis to shield politically influential accused, and directed the case to the Acquittal Review Committee to fix responsibility. Bengaluru: A […]
The Supreme Court has acquitted a Patwari, since deceased, in a Prevention of Corruption Act bribe-trap case, holding that proof of both the demand and the acceptance of illegal gratification is a sine qua non for conviction under Sections 7 and 13 of the Act. With the complainant having died before deposing and the shadow witness turning hostile, no witness saw the demand or the handing-over of the money, and the recovery of tainted currency alone could not sustain the conviction.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has dismissed a State appeal against the acquittal of a Patwari in a 1996 bribery-trap case, holding that the recovery of tainted currency is not, by itself, proof of guilt under the Prevention of Corruption Act. A demand for gratification, and not a mere demand for money, must be proved beyond reasonable doubt before the statutory presumption under Section 20 can be invoked. Finding the evidence pointed as plausibly to a demand for government dues, and the acquittal not perverse, the Court affirmed it.