In a significant verdict, the Bombay High Court has acquitted three men who were serving life imprisonment for the alleged gangrape and murder of a 19-year-old woman in Sangli back in 2012. The court set aside their conviction, observing that the prosecution failed to establish a conclusive chain of circumstances and motive for the crime.
Overturning the Sessions Court Judgment
A bench comprising Justices Suman Shyam and Shyam C Chandak delivered the ruling on December 24, allowing the appeals filed by the three convicts. The men had challenged a July 2019 judgment from the Sangli Sessions Court which found them guilty under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The charges included Section 302 (murder), Section 376(2)(g) (gangrape), Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), and Section 34 (common intention). The sessions court had sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment for life until natural death.
The Prosecution's Case and the High Court's Scrutiny
According to the original prosecution case, the victim's decomposed body was discovered in October 2012 with her hands tied. A postmortem report indicated death by throttling and noted a vaginal tear. The prosecution alleged that the 19-year-old, who left home for work at a cloth shop on October 12, 2012, was later murdered.
The investigation pointed to a relationship between the victim and the prime accused. It was claimed she was pressuring him to marry her, a situation disapproved of by her father. The prosecution's narrative was that the accused took her to a secluded spot, forced her to consume alcohol, gangraped her, strangled her, and disposed of her body in a well.
"Reasonable Doubt" and Failure of Circumstantial Evidence
The High Court bench, after a thorough re-appreciation of the evidence, found critical gaps in the prosecution's story. The judgment highlighted the failure to prove the "motive" for the crime and the "last seen together" theory beyond reasonable doubt.
"We are of the considered view that the prosecution has failed to prove the chain of circumstances... so as to point towards the only hypothesis that, except the appellants, no other person has committed rape on the victim, caused her murder and the disappearance of the evidence," the bench observed.
The court went further, noting a lingering reasonable doubt about the conclusiveness of the circumstances presented. It even suggested the possibility of witness manipulation, stating, "the possibility of planting witnesses by the police so as to stagemanage the prosecution story cannot be ruled out in this case."
The Final Verdict and Benefit of Doubt
Concluding that there was reasonable doubt regarding the veracity of the prosecution's case, the High Court extended the benefit of doubt to the appellants. "The benefit of doubt, therefore, must go to the appellants. As a result, all the appeals deserve to be allowed," the court held.
This ruling underscores the paramount importance of a watertight prosecution in criminal cases, especially those reliant on circumstantial evidence. The acquittal brings a dramatic end to a legal battle that lasted over a decade, leaving the 2012 case without any convicted individuals.
