The Bombay High Court has acquitted a man, who was arrested over ten years ago for murdering a woman, after observing that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
A division bench of justices P V Hardas and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi was hearing an appeal filed by Rupesh Shetty (28) challenging a sessions court order of April 2007 convicting and sentencing him to life imprisonment for murdering a 32-year-old woman Seva Dhakade.
According to the prosecution, Shetty on April 12, 2003 had a fight with the victim and then assaulted her with a hammer and killed her at her residence in suburban Borivli. The prosecution case rested on the evidence of few neighbours and a passerby who heard the victim scream for help.
The high court after perusing the evidence of the case said that the prosecution has failed to bring "cogent, convincing and reliable evidence" on record against the appellant to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
The court took note of the fact that out of the ten prosecution witnesses, nine had turned hostile and the evidence of one sole eyewitness was not reliable.
"It is not that conviction cannot rest on the testimony of a solitary eyewitness but then evidence of such an eyewitness has to be cogent, consistent and wholly reliable. In the instant case, the evidence of the sole eyewitness is not found to be of such sterling worth that without corroboration from any other source it can be relied upon to prove the guilt of the accused," the court said.
