Supreme Court acquits two including a death row convict in rape and murder of 12-year-old

The Supreme Court on August 26 acquitted two men including a death row convict in a rape and murder case, blaming the police and prosecution for shoddy investigation [Putai vs. State of Uttar Pradesh].

A Bench of Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Mehta came down heavily on the manner in which the case was handled, remarking that it was yet another instance where 'lackluster and shabby investigation' had resulted in the failure to bring home guilt in a matter concerning the rape and murder of a minor girl.

The Court added that when a case rests entirely on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution bears the burden of proving guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.

"We feel that the present case is yet another classic example of lackluster and shabby investigation and so also laconic trial procedure which has led to the failure of a case involving brutal rape and murder of an innocent girl child...we are conscious that the case involves a gruesome act of rape and brutal murder of a tender girl child aged 12 years. However, it is a settled tenet of criminal jurisprudence that in a case based purely on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The incriminating circumstances must be such which point exclusively to the guilt of the accused and are inconsistent with his innocence or the guilt of anyone else," Court observed.

The Court was hearing a plea challenging a 2018 order of the Allahabad High Court which had upheld the convictions of two appellants, Putai and Dileep, sentencing them to death and life imprisonment respectively for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl in Lucknow in 2012.

The incident happened in September 2012, when the young girl went out to attend to nature’s call and did not return. Her family members and villagers searched for her throughout the night but she could not be found.

The following morning, some of her belongings including footwear, a water container and underclothes with blood stains were found scattered in a field. A little later, her naked body was discovered lying in an adjoining agricultural field.

A police complaint was lodged immediately, and a First Information Report (FIR) was registered under section 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and 376 (rape) of Indian Penal Code(IPC). The postmortem confirmed that the child had been subjected to sexual assault and had died due to strangulation.

During the investigation, the police claimed that a dog squad was used, and that a comb recovered from the scene led them to suspect two men from the same locality. Both were arrested on September 7, 2012, and their blood samples were collected more than two months later for forensic comparison.

The first DNA report prepared in January 2014 was inconclusive. A supplementary DNA report produced later suggested a match with the accused but it was never proved by the expert in court and was not put to the accused for their explanation.

Relying on circumstantial evidence, the trial court convicted both men in 2014, sentencing one of them to death and the other to life imprisonment. In October 2018, the Allahabad High Court upheld the trial court’s decision and dismissed the appeals by both men.

Aggrieved by the order, the convicts challenged the decision before the Supreme Court.

They contended that the case rested on suspicion, stressing that the January 2014 DNA report was inconclusive and that the December 2014 supplementary report was inadmissible, as it was neither put to them under Section 313 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) nor supported by expert testimony.

The State countered that the witnesses, being simple villagers, had no reason to falsely implicate the accused, and minor inconsistencies in their accounts were natural in such traumatic circumstances.

It further argued that the recovery of the victim’s belongings from accused's field placed a burden under Section 106 of the Evidence Act on the accused to explain their presence, which they failed to do.

The Court found that the case rested entirely on circumstantial material.

In such case, the chain of circumstances must be unbroken, consistent and exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than the guilt of the accused, the Court underscored.

"We have no hesitation in holding that other than the allegation that the child victim’s chappals, underwear and the water canister were found in the field which was cultivated by accused No. 1-Putai, the prosecution has failed to lead any credible evidence whatsoever which can be considered to be incriminating the accused appellants for the crime in question, what to say, of evidence which is capable of proving the guilt of the accused-appellants beyond all manner of doubt," the Court said.

It added that forensic evidence, which was central to the prosecution’s case, also suffered from grave procedural lapses. The chain of custody of blood and biological samples was not proved, no documents regarding storage or transmission to the laboratory were exhibited and there was inconsistency in the medical testimony regarding the number of samples collected.

"Having considered and analyzed the evidence available on record minutely, we feel that the prosecution has fallen woefully short of proving the guilt of the accused-appellants by clinching evidence which can be termed as proving the case beyond all manner of doubt," Court noted.

Taking these factors together, the Court held that suspicion, however strong, could not replace proof.

Accordingly , the convictions and sentences imposed by the lower courts were set aside and both individuals were acquitted.

Senior Advocate Sadan Farasat and Advocates Shreya Rastogi, Manasa Ramakrishna, Abhishek Babbar and Kabir Dixit appeared for accused.

Advocates Shaurya Sahay, Aditya Kumar and Aman Jaiswal appeared for respondents.

[Read Judgment]