Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 5: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has dismissed the State’s acquittal appeal in a 2014 murder case, holding that the prosecution failed to prove the chain of circumstantial evidence against the accused.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Sindhu Sharma and Justice Shahzad Azeem upheld the judgment dated April 30, 2016 passed by the Principal Sessions Judge, Udhampur, whereby accused Rakesh Singh, son of Kartar Singh, resident of Assi Phalata, District Udhampur, was acquitted of offences under Sections 302, 404 and 201 RPC.
The prosecution case was that the accused had allegedly taken sexual advantage of deceased Subadri Devi, a divorced woman and mother of two children, and later took her towards Mand Jungle on the false pretext of solemnising court marriage. It was alleged that he murdered her to get rid of her and concealed her mobile phone and gold earrings in Bai Nallah, Katra Jungle. Her body was recovered on April 24, 2014.
The State challenged the acquittal, arguing that the trial court had failed to properly appreciate the evidence and ignored material witnesses. The State was represented by Advocate Saliqa Sheikh, appearing vice AAG Raman Sharma, while the respondent was represented by Advocate Sachin Sharma.
The Bench noted that the entire prosecution case rested on circumstantial evidence, mainly the last-seen theory, disclosure statement and recovery. However, the Court found serious contradictions in the statements of key prosecution witnesses, including the deceased’s father, mother, brother, sister-in-law and minor son, regarding the time and manner in which the accused and deceased allegedly left the house together.
The Court observed that some witnesses stated that the accused and deceased left together, while others said that the accused left earlier and the deceased followed after a gap of one to two hours. The minor son of the deceased also stated that his mother had told him she was going for work and would return in the evening. The Bench held that these contradictions completely demolished the last-seen theory.
The Court also found the alleged disclosure and recovery of the deceased’s mobile phone and gold earrings highly doubtful. One witness to the disclosure and recovery did not support the prosecution version, while another witness stated that the mobile phone was found near the dead body and the earrings were still worn by the deceased, thereby falsifying the prosecution claim that these articles were recovered at the instance of the accused.
The medical evidence also did not support the prosecution case, as no definite cause of death could be ascertained in the post-mortem report. The Bench held that crucial links in the chain of circumstances were missing and the prosecution had failed to bridge the gap between suspicion and proof.
Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the State’s appeal as devoid of merit and upheld the acquittal of Rakesh Singh.
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