In a major relief to former UP minister Anand Sen Yadav, the Allahabad High Court today set aside a district court's order, which had sentenced him to life imprisonment in a case of abduction and murder of a Dalit girl.
The Lucknow bench of the court also set aside the life term given to another accused Seema Azad, and reduced the sentence of Vijay Sen Yadav, driver of the former minister.
The judgement was passed by a bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Devendra Kumar Arora in three separate appeals.
"Both the accused are entitled for the benefit of doubt. Accordingly, appeals of Seema Azad and Anand Sen Yadav are allowed and their conviction is set aside. They shall be released forthwith unless wanted in any other case. Sureties are discharged," the order said.
A Faizabad court had on May 17, 2011, sentenced to life imprisonment the then BSP MLA and former Minister Anand Sen, Seema Azad and Vijay Sen Yadav for murdering law student Shashi.
"Taking the holistic view and totality of the circumstances of the case we are of the decisive opinion that the trial court has erred in drawing the conclusion that all the three accused are involved in the alleged crime in the manner as alleged," the bench observed.
The court said that as per the observation appellants Sen and Azad were not held guilty of any offence as the prosecution has failed to prove their involvement in the alleged crime.
"The case is totally based on circumstantial evidence and it would not be safe to convict these two accused persons even under Section 120-B IPC in absence of clinching and tangible evidence to complete the chain of events as required under law," it said.
The bench observed that the prosecution had failed to establish the guilt of the accused Sen and Azad "beyond all shadow of doubts".
The sentence of the driver, Vijay Sen, was reduced to 10 years.
