HC acquits domestic help in rape, murder of 82-year-old woman

An 82-year-old widow journalist, who was raped and killed at her South Delhi residence, was murdered in the "most inhuman manner", the Delhi High Court Thursday said but acquitted her 23-year-old domestic help saying the prosecution failed to prove the case.

The court allowed the man's appeal and set aside the trial court's order convicting and sentencing the accused for the offences of rape, murder and destruction of evidence.

A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel said the crime was "indeed horrific".

"An elderly has been done to death in the most inhuman manner. The evidence placed on record by the prosecution, however, has failed to prove that it is the appellant who is responsible for the crime.

 

"Howsoever strong a suspicion might be, it cannot constitute proof and is insufficient to return a finding of guilt," the bench said.

It said the prosecution has failed to prove the case against accused Neeraj Safi beyond reasonable doubt.

The trial court had held Safi guilty -- the victim's servant for raping and murdering her in her Greater Kailash-II house on July 7, 2014.

The police, in its charge sheet, had alleged that he had raped the woman, who used to stay alone since her husband died in 2005, and then strangled her with her dupatta.

The man, who hailed from Madhubani in Bihar, had then set the body of the victim on fire using kerosene and dragged it to an adjacent room, the police had said.

After killing her, he tried to mislead neighbours and the police about her whereabouts stating that she had not returned from her evening walk in a nearby park, the police had alleged.

The man had denied committing the crime.

The high court, in its verdict, said the man's conduct of calling the neighbour and the victim's daughter in the US and remaining present at the spot throughout was not the conduct of a person who had committed such a serious crime.

It said the woman's son-in-law was neither a reliable nor a truthful witness and the conviction of the man cannot be based on the evidence of such witness.

"With the medical and forensic evidence ruling out the possibility of the man having committed the physical sexual assault on the deceased, the prosecution has failed to prove the motive for a crime," it said.