[Murder case] “Seriously questionable investigation by police:” Bombay High Court sets aside conviction, life sentence

A man convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by trial court for murdering a woman was acquitted by the Bombay High Court on the ground that the investigation carried out by the police was questionable [Ganesh Bhagya Mandavkar v. State of Maharashtra]..After perusing the evidence on record, a Bench of Justices SS Shinde and Milind Jadhav recorded in the order that “the manner in which the investigation has been conducted by the police authorities is seriously questionable on the face of record”.The Bench also directed that “appropriate action” be taken against the police authorities who had carried out investigation and ordered that a copy of the Court's 28-page judgment be sent to the Superintendent of Police of the concerned district for the same..The observations came on an appeal filed by Ganesh Mandavkar, who had challenged the conviction order of Raigad Sessions Judge, Maharashtra sentencing him to life imprisonment for murdering a woman.The alleged incident took place in 2017 when the body of the deceased was discovered in a jungle. The same day a first information report was registered against unknown persons and a month later the appellant was arrested.Mandavkar along with a co-accused, who passed away mid-trial, denied their involvement in the crime and claimed that a false case had been lodged against them.Meanwhile the prosecution alleged that the two accused had demanded sexual favours from the deceased woman, who refused after which the two strangulated her to death with a towel..Mandavkar’s court appointed legal aid counsel, advocate Ashish Satpute argued that the investigation conducted by the police officials was improper and inadequate.He argued that the judgment under challenge was based on faulty investigation conducted by police and the accused was convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence and mere conjectures..The Bench noted from the examination record of the witnesses, more particularly of a six-year-old alleged eye-witness that the “possibility of the minor witness being tutored during the intervening 23 days cannot be ruled out”.The Bench opined that evidence must be treated with extreme caution as it involves the question of life and liberty of the appellant.The child witness was supposedly the sole eye-witness to the incident but his evidence was fraught with inconsistencies and lacked adequate corroboration, the Bench reasoned.With these observations, the Bench set aside the conviction order observing “without the slightest doubt that the findings and sentence of the trial court is unsustainable”..[Read Judgment]