Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Mar 27: High Court today partly allowed the petition challenging the FIR lodged against the petitioners in much publicized 2009 alleged rape and murder case of two women in Shopian.
Justice Sanjeev Kumar while disposing of the petition said that this court have no hesitation to hold that putting the petitioners to trial for the commission of offences under Sections167, 193 and 194 RPC read with Section 120-B RPC would be a sheer abuse of the process of law as the evidence collected in the challan even if accepted in its entirety as the gospel truth, would not make out a case of commission of offences.
With these observations Court partly allowed the petition and ordered that the challan against the petitioners, insofar as it pertains to the commission of offences under Section 193, 194 and 167 RPC read with Section 120-B RPC, is quashed. However, court said, the challan would proceed as against the petitioners for offence under Section 195-A RPC.
“It is, however, made clear that the petitioners would be at liberty to raise all contentions and arguments available to them at the time of framing of the charge and nothing said hereinabove would be taken as an expression of opinion on the merits of the case, insofar as, the charge-sheet against the petitioners for commission of offences under Section 195-A RPC is concerned”, reads the judgment.
Court further added that it finds sufficient evidence available in the challan to prima facie indicate the involvement of the petitioners along with others for commission of offences under Section 195-A RPC.
The counsel appearing for the petitioners submitted that the evidence collected by the investigating agency in the shape of statements as recorded under Section 164-A CrPC before Judicial Magistrate is untrustworthy. Court said these submissions are inadmissible in law cannot be accepted at this stage for the simple reason that the truthfulness, veracity or even the admissibility of a particular piece of evidence cannot be gone into these proceedings being a subject matter of trial. However, court made it clear, that nothing prevents the petitioners to raise all these contentions before the trial Court, when the matter comes up for framing of the charge.
Court added that there is sufficient evidence against the petitioners that they along with others threatened and induced Ghulam Mohiuddin Lone and Abdul Rashid Pampori to give false evidence, first before the Jan Commission and then before the CJM Shopian when their statements under Section 164-A Cr.PC were got recorded by the Police Station, Shopian to implicate the personnel of police/security so as to procure their conviction of capital offence. The ingredients of Section 195-A RPC are, therefore, met.
”The evidence collected by the respondents when examined in the light of the provisions of Section 195-A RPC, this Court has no doubt in mind that the respondents have collected sufficient evidence against the petitioners which prima facie show the involvement of the petitioners in threatening and inducing the witnesses to create false evidence to implicate the security personnel in the commission of offences”, court said.
”The investigation, however, reveals that petitioners came into action only after the two post-mortems had already been conducted on the deceased ladies confirming the commission of offences of rape and murder”, court said.
There is not an iota of evidence, reads the judgment, in the challan from where it could be even inferred that there was some meeting of mind or prior concert which could be termed as conspiracy between the accused doctors who falsified the record and fabricated the evidence and the petitioners who made the two witnesses to depose falsely.
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