"Arrests made in serious haste:" Delhi High Court acquits two men facing life term in murder case

Two murder convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment are set to walk free after the Delhi High Court acquitted them and observed that the arrests, on the face of it, were carried out in “serious haste” by the investigating team purportedly on the basis of the statement of the victim’s wife [Anil Kumar, Ajeet v. State]..A bench of Justices Mukta Gupta and Anish Dayal underlined that all the four elements of circumstantial evidence—motive, last seen, weapon recovery, recovery of belongings—relied upon by the trial court hadn’t been proved beyond reasonable doubt to sustain the guilt of the accused persons.The bench frowned upon the arrests of the two men on October 15, 2013—a day before the deceased’s actual identification.“Ex-facie, the arrests seem to have been done in serious haste by the investigating team allegedly upon the statement of the deceased’s wife,” the bench noted..Background.A woman registered a missing complaint of her husband with the local police on October 14, 2013. She said that her husband left home on October 12 at around 11.45 pm and never returned. It also came on record that the victim was working at a private company in the city and one of the convicts was the friend of her husband with whom he also had some monetary transactions.She alleged that the same appellant had withdrawn money from her husband’s account through a signed cheque that had gone missing. According to her, both appellants met the couple on October 12 at around 11 am in a public place and reportedly promised to return the money. The woman and husband came back home while the husband asked the appellants to remain where they were. He left home thereafter but never returned, she alleged. On the same day, at around 10 pm, he sent her a text message saying he was going to Ambala, Haryana with his boss.On October 12, 2013, the police found an unidentified dead body of a man, who was later identified to be the woman’s husband.The appellants were subsequently arrested and tried for murder of the deceased. The police claimed to have made recoveries, including the weapon used in the crime.A trial court consequently held them guilty on December 26, 2016 and awarded life imprisonment on January 11, 2017..Arguments.Arguing their appeal, their counsel contended that there was no eyewitness to the alleged incident and the case was “purely based” on circumstantial evidence. It was also argued that the testimony of the wife was marred by contradictions and she had not been able to elaborate on the bank account from which the cheque was issued and whether it was an individual or a joint account with herself and the deceased.It was also argued by the defense counsel that the witness who had informed about the dead body was not even made a witness to the proceedings at the spot. The same witness was stated to have not seen any articles allegedly recovered by the police from the spot or from the vicinity from where the dead body was recovered during cross-examination..The counsel contended there was some “haste by the police” to declare that they had solved a murder case expeditiously—evident from a press release issued on October 15, 2013 by a senior police official of having solved a “blind brutal” murder case.The prosecutor opposed the arguments, stressing on the “last seen” circumstance as narrated by the wife. He also submitted that the recovery of the deceased’s mobile phone from one of the appellants nailed their involvement especially seen in the light of the monetary angle..Judgment.The bench examined the arguments crucial to the guilt of the convicts and held:Merely seeing the appellants in the market with the woman and her husband does not qualify as the evidence of last seen, because later the deceased came home and then left ostensibly to go with his boss; No corroborating evidence to show appellants were involved in stealing or forging the cheque to withdraw money; No finger prints taken from the weapon and as a result no forensic evidence to prove guilt;Neither any finger print found on the alleged weapon of offence nor any DNA samples retrieved to match with that of the appellants; Recovery of articles of the deceased neither put up for identification by a witness nor corroborated by an independent witness;When the wife received an SMS from the victim, his cell phone was found to be in the same location as that of the wife, but the location of the appellants at the relevant time was elsewhere..The Court, therefore, held that the prosecution was unable to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt on the basis of circumstantial evidence.“The linkages between the evidence presented by the prosecution are weak and cannot sustain a finding of guilt beyond reasonable doubt…Superintendent, Tihar Jail is directed to release the appellants forthwith, if not required in any other case,” it highlighted..Senior Advocate Anjana Prakash and Advocates Anwesh Madhukar, Prachi Nirwan, Pranjal Shekhar and Yaseen Siddiqui represented the appellants.Additional Public Prosecutor Tarang Srivastav appeared for the state..[Read Judgment]