After nearly two of a legal battle in a murder case, two persons, sentenced to life imprisonment, have been acquitted by the Delhi High Court saying the "prosecution has failed to prove its claims in the case."
Reversing the trial court's conviction and sentence order against Inder Singh and Ranvir alias Kuddu, a bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and V Kameswar Rao rejected the prosecution claim that the deceased Surjit Singh was picked up from his home forcefully on the date of incident by the accused and after that he had not returned.
Rejecting the testimonies of the brother of the deceased and also the statements of other prosecution witnesses for their failure to inform police about it on time, the court said there are discrepancies in the testimonies of prosecution witnesses on the claim that the deceased had been taken away by the accused on the fateful night.
"......We hold that the prosecution has not been able to establish that the deceased was forcibly taken away by the accused from his tenanted premises on the night of March 25, 1994," the bench said.
"We allow the appeals and set aside the impugned judgment and order dated June 12, 1998 convicting the appellants (Singh and Kuddu) for having committed the offences they were charged with. The appellants are acquitted. The bail bonds and surety bonds furnished by the appellants are discharged," the bench said.
The court also found discrepancies in the statement of father of the deceased and said "we need not examine the various contradictions/discrepancies pointed out by the counsel appearing for the accused for the reason we find that it is highly improbable that accused persons would have made an extra-judicial confession to the father of the deceased.
