The Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted a man who has been on death row since 2015 for raping and killing a 23-year-old techie Esther Anuhya in 2014..The Bench of Justice BR Gavai, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice KV Viswanathan ruled that it was extremely unsafe to sustain the conviction of Chandrabhan Sudam Sanap. All the facts shows that there is a gaping hole in the prosecution story and there is more than meets the eye, the Court said after examining the evidence."We hold appellant is not guilty of offence. Appellant to be set free. He is not guilty. He is acquitted," the Court ordered..The Bombay High Court in 2018 had confirmed the death sentence of Sanap, observing that such a person would surely remain a menace to the society..The victim in the case was a Software Engineer in TCS in Goregaon at Mumbai and hailed from Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh.According to the prosecution, the 23-year-old had been kidnapped by the accused. He had then raped her and killed her. Further, he had allegedly burnt her body at a secluded place near the Eastern Expressway.The trial judge, while awarding the death sentence to Sanap, had said that he acted with extreme brutality and committed the offence in a pre-planned and a diabolical manner.
