Police Must Take Note Of Lapses In Investigation To Obviate Loopholes Which Enable Guilty To Walk Free: SC While Confirming Acquittal In Murder Case
|The Supreme Court has recently observed that the police authorities in our country must take note of the all too frequent shortcomings and lapses on their part while carrying out investigations to obviate loopholes that invariably weaken the case of the prosecution on merits and enable the guilty of even serious offences to walk free nonchalantly.
The Bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Aravind Kumar ordered, “It is high time that the police authorities in our country take note of the all too frequent shortcomings and lapses on their part while carrying out investigation so as to streamline the procedure of investigation and obviate such gaping loopholes that invariably weaken the case of the prosecution on merits and/or on technicalities and enable those guilty of even serious offences to walk free nonchalantly.”
Senior Advocate S. Nagamuthu appeared for the Appellant whereas ASG Aishwarya Bhati, Senior Advocates Rakesh Tikoo and R Bala appeared for the Respondents.
The appeal arose out of the concurring judgment of the Delhi High Court confirming the acquittal of the two accused by the Trial Court in a case of murder, where the victim was shot in the back near her own home.
The Court observed, “We must, however, place on record our anguish over the lackadaisical manner in which the police carried out the investigation into this heinous offence and their consequential blunders, be they deliberate or otherwise, which resulted in the acquittal of the accused.”
The Court said that the lapses in the investigation and the prosecution of the case, apart from the apparent contradictions in the evidence of eye-witnesses, left both the Courts with no other option but to acquit the two accused.
The High Court had held that the earliest document, i.e. rukka, as well as the MLCs and other contemporaneous police records do not mention the name of the respondents. However, the identity of the deceased was recorded in the MLC. If the relatives were with her, the police would have known about the identity of the assailant. If they were not with her at the time she was taken to the hospital, her identity could not have been known by the police, unless she was conscious and oriented to disclose it, in which case the identity of the attacker too would have been disclosed. “These aspects are important, and provide a backdrop in which the delay in examining the eyewitnesses during investigation, has to be viewed. The Trial Court, in our opinion, correctly surmised that the testimonies of the four eyewitnesses could not be given credence in this case.”, the High Court added.
Accordingly, the Court dismissed the appeal.
Cause Title: Ashok Kumar v. Joginder@Jogi & Ors
Appearances:
Appellant: Senior Advocate S. Nagamuthu, AOR VK Verma, Advocates Prashant Shukla, Anushree Shukla, Tarun Verma, Rajat Srivastava, Prabhat Chowdhary and Kartik Kumar.
Respondents: ASG Aishwarya Bhati, Senior Advocates Rakesh Tikoo, R Bala, AORs Abhinav Ramkrishna, Aruna Gupta, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Advocates Anjali Chauhan, Samina Thakur, Shraddha Deshmukh, Rajnish Prasad, Udai Khanna, Nithin Choudhwary Pavuluri, Anmol Chandan, Rajesh Singh Chauhan, Riddhi Jod and Anirudh Singh