Judging like a maths teacher/film director: Allahabad HC tears into Aarushi trial court judge

Last week, the Allahabad High Court set aside the trial court judgment in the Aarushi murder case, thus providing relief to Nupur and Rajesh Talwar, who had been languishing in jail for the last four years..In a 273-page judgment, Justice Bala Krishna Narayana and Justice Arvind Kumar Mishra held that prosecution had failed to prove its case against the Talwars beyond all reasonable doubt. BK Narayana J had written 269 of those pages..Justice Mishra penned a separate but concurring judgment agreeing with his brother judge’s views. Mishra J also made it a point to heavily criticise the trial judge’s approach to the case. He writes,.“The learned trial Judge took evidence and the circumstances of the case for granted and tried to solve it like a mathematical puzzle when one solves a given question and then takes something for granted in order to solve that puzzle and question. But the point is that the learned trial Judge cannot act like a maths teacher who is solving a mathematical question by analogy after taking certain figure for granted.”.Mishra J also lamented that the trial judge had decided the case like a Film Director..“That way, the learned trial Judge has aberrated and by dint of fallacious analogy and reasoning has surprisingly assumed fictional animation of the incident…he has tried to give live and colourful description of the incident in question and the whole genesis of the offence was grounded on fact that both the deceased Hemraj and Arushi were seen by Dr. Rajesh Talwar in fla-grante and thereafter like a film Director, the trial Judge has tried to thrust coherence amongst facts inalienably scattered here and there but not giving any coherence to the idea as to what in fact happened…”.He goes on to say that the judge was “unmindful of the basic tenets of law”..“…the trial Judge should evaluate evidence in its existing form, should not tinge it with his passionate reasoning so as to give a different construction than the one which is naturally reflected and forthcoming. Caution enjoins the trial Judge that he should exercise self-restraint from deliberately twisting facts in arbitrary manner….…The trial Judge is supposed to be fair and transparent and should act as a man of ordinary prudence and he should not stretch his imagination to infinity – rendering the whole exercise mockery of law.”.Perhaps in a bid to ensure that the same is not repeated, Justice Mishra also laid out the following norms to be followed by trial court judges:.(1) The parochial and narrow approach to the facts and evidence should be avoided and evidence of a particular case has to be read and construed on its face value in line with the statutory requirement..(2) The passionate and rash reasoning should not be the guiding factor while scrutinizing evidence, facts and circumstances of a criminal case..(3) The self-perception and realm should not be reflected on analogy of the facts and evidence on record..(4) The judgment should not be based on self-created postulates..(5) The imagination should not be given a concrete form and transparency of approach must be reflected in the judgment..Read the judgment delivered by Justice AK Mishra:.Click here to download the Bar & Bench Android App