A Delhi court has given benefit of doubt to four people and acquitted them in a case of gangrape and murder of 16-year-old girl here, saying there were "serious lapses" in the story of the prosecution which could not establish the identity of the body recovered.
Additional Sessions Judge Ramesh Kumar II absolved the four men of the heinous offences of gangrape and murder under the IPC, while noting that circumstances emerging from the evidence could not be considered sufficient to bring home their guilt.
"It is unfortunate that an innocent girl has lost her life but the crucial question is that whether the accused persons were responsible for her death and that whether prosecution has been able to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt need to be answered in the light of evidence brought on record," the judge said.
The court also praised advocate Karan Pal Singh, counsel for one of the accused, for unearthing the facts of the case.
"The circumstance enumerated by prosecution pale into insignificance once prosecution failed to prove identity of dead body by any cogent evidence and in its absence accused persons cannot be held liable for the offence.
"I also want to appreciate the sincere efforts of Karan Pal Singh, counsel for one of the accused, to unearth the true facts of the story and highlights serious lapse in the prosecution story," the judge said.
"Accordingly, in the absence of sufficient evidence against accused persons coupled with lack of cogent evidence to establish the identity of the dead body to be of deceased, accused persons namely...are acquitted from the charges," the judge said.
According to the prosecution, on August 10, 2012 the girl went missing and her father lodged a missing complaint at Burari police station. She never returned home, it said, adding that on a complaint from her father, the four accused were arrested.
The body was found on August 27, 2012 in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, the police said.
However, as per the post-mortem report, the body's age was found to be around 25-30 years, while the age of the girl was 16, the court noted.
The court, while rejecting the prosecution's version, relied on the submission of the defence counsel and the DNA report for identification of the body, saying it was not of any help to the prosecution.
"It also creates a strong doubt about the truth of the whole prosecution, story particularly identification of the body, and makes it unbelievable," it said.
The accused were booked for the offences of kidnapping, gangrape, murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the IPC.
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