Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 12: High Court has acquitted two police cops, who were convicted and sentenced by the trial court, after 22 years long investigation and trial in a corruption case.
These cops namely Abdul Rashid and Ramesh Kumar during their posting at Police Post Thathri in March 1994 had taken bribe to release one person from the police custody and they were booked by the Vigilance Organization on the receipt of a complaint.
The Special Judge Anticorruption had convicted the accused in 2003 and awarded sentence. However, the convicts challenged the judgment in the High Court by filing criminal appeal.
After hearing Advocate AP Singh appearing for the appellant whereas Deputy AG Farz Iqbal appearing for the State, Justice Tashi Rabstan set-aside the conviction and sentence awarded by the trial court and acquitted both the cops of the charges after 22 years long investigation and trial.
“Criminal trial is not a fairy tale in which one is free to give flight to one’s imagination and fantasy. Crime is an event in real life and is product of interplay between different human emotions. In arriving at a conclusion about the guilt of accused, charged with commission of a crime, the court has to judge the evidence by the yardstick of probabilities, its intrinsic worth and the animus of witnesses”, Justice Rabstan said.
“Every case, in the final analysis, would have to depend upon its own facts. The court must bear in mind that human nature is too willing, when faced with brutal crimes, to spin stories out of strong suspicions. Though an offence may be gruesome and revolt the human conscience, an accused can be convicted only on legal evidence and not on surmises and conjectures”, Justice Rabstan further observed, adding “the law does not permit the court to punish accused on the basis of a moral conviction or suspicion alone”.
“The burden of proof in a criminal trial never shifts and it is always the burden of prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt on the basis of acceptable evidence. In fact, it is a settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that the more serious the offence, the stricter the degree of proof required, since a higher degree of assurance is required to convict the accused”, High Court said.
With these observations, court acquitted accused of the charges leveled against them.
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