[2012 Chhawla rape and murder] Courts cannot punish accused based on suspicion: Supreme Court acquits 3 death row convicts

The Supreme Court last week acquitted three death row convicts in the 2012 Chhawla gang-rape and murder case that took place in Delhi's Dwarka, while noting that courts cannot punish accused on the basis of moral conviction (Rahul v. Delhi, MHA & anr).A Bench of Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi reasoned that the trial court had remained a 'passive umpire' to improper examination of prosecution witnesses and forensic evidence that the police had relied on. The judges admitted that the crime was heinous, but stated that it was left with no alternative but to acquit the accused, as it cannot be influenced by outside moral pressures. "The prosecution has to bring home the charges levelled against them beyond reasonable doubt, which the prosecution has failed to do in the instant case...It may be true that if the accused involved in the heinous crime go unpunished or are acquitted, a kind of agony and frustration may be caused to the society in general and to the family of the victim in particular, however the law does not permit the Courts to punish the accused on the basis of moral conviction or on suspicion alone. No conviction should be based merely on the apprehension of indictment or condemnation over the decision rendered.".On the night of February 9, 2012, the police received information that the victim was kidnapped and forcibly put inside a red-coloured Tata Indica at Chhawla.A first information report (FIR) was registered on the basis of a complaint by the kidnapped girl's friend, who was with her at the time. Her body was later found in the fields of Rodai village. The police subsequently apprehended the three accused after one of them was found looking perplexed and allegedly driving the car in question.A trial court had in February 2014 convicted them for the offences of gang-rape, murder and causing disappearance of evidence. They were given death sentence. The Delhi High Court later that year had dismissed the appeals of the three accused, leading to the present plea before the top court. .The top court at the outset stated, in the context of the courts below relying on DNA evidence that was similar to that of the accused, that,"...in the light of the evidence on record, it cannot be denied that the entire case of prosecution rested on the circumstantial evidence, and that the victim was raped and brutally murdered."The Court took objection to the fact that none of the accused were identified by any witnesses during the depositions phase of the trial, and neither was a test-identification parade carried out by the police."Therefore, the very identity of the appellants - accused having not been duly established, the entire case of the prosecution falls flat on the very first circumstance having not been duly proved by any evidence much less clinching evidence, against the Appellants-accused."The beat constables who had said that the accused were found driving (or being in possession of) the car in which the offences took place were also not cross-examined, the Court noted.Coupled with the facts that even the friend of the murdered girl (whose statement was the basis of the FIR) could not say with certainty it was the same car in which she was kidnapped, as well as the accused stating that the car was only seized after their arrest from home, this piece of evidence was also not reliable, the top court said..Next, the Court pointed out that the trial court had relied on an 'extra-judicial confession' made by the accused. "The law in this regard is very clear that the confession before the police officer by the accused when he is in police custody, cannot be called an extra-judicial confession. If a confession is made by the accused before the police, and a portion of such confession leads to the recovery of any incriminating material, such portion alone would be admissible under Section 27 of the Evidence Act, and not the entire confessional statements. In the instant case, therefore the trial court had committed gross error." Further, the police had not mentioned that the articles of the accused were found in the car in their seizure memo, even as the accused contended that these were taken from them at the police station. The judgment records that out of the 49 prosecution witnesses, 10 material witnesses were not cross-examined and several important witnesses were not adequately cross-examined by defence counsel.The apex court also ruled that the electronic call records, forensic examination of articles found at the alleged crime scene, and DNA sample evidence did not convey a clinching link of the accused to the crime, nor were these properly examined during trial. "As per the settled legal position, in order to sustain conviction, the circumstances taken cumulatively should form a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that within all human probability, the crime was committed by the accused only and none else. The circumstantial evidence must be complete and incapable of explanation of any other hypothesis than that of the guilt of the accused and such evidence should not only be consistent with the guilt of the accused but should be inconsistent with his innocence," the judges underscored. The judges noted that it was constrained to point out the inadequacies of the trial and the police investigation, calling these 'glaring lapses'. .The Court clarified that the parents of the girl who was gang-raped and murdered would still be entitled to compensation under Section 357(A) of the Criminal Procedure Code."Hence, while allowing these appeals and acquitting the Appellants- accused, we direct that the parents of the victim would be entitled to the compensation, if not awarded so far by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority, as may be permissible in accordance with law.".Senior Advocate Sonia Mathur was the Amicus Curiae.Senior Advocate Sirajudeen with Advocates Shivani Misra, Shreya Rastogi, Nikhil Chandra Jaiswal, Simranjeet S Saluja, Pratiksha Mishra, Ronika Tater, Divik Mathur, Rupakshi Soni, Nidhi, Mohit Girdhar, Sarthak Arora, Harinder Mohan Singh and Shabana appeared for the accused. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati with Advocates Ruchi Kohli, Celeste Agarwal, BLN Shivani, Rustam Singh Chauhan, Aman Sharma, Manvendra Singh, Gurmeet Singh Makker, Charu Wali Khanna, and Vipin Gupta represented the respondents. .[Read judgment]