Chennai: Pulling up the police for not conducting the investigation properly, the Madras high court has upheld an order of the trial court, acquitting five accused in a murder case.
Dismissing the appeal filed by Antony, father of the deceased, a division bench comprising Justices S.Vaidyanathan and Anand Venkatesh said, “We are of the considered view that the prosecution has failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubts. The evidence of four prosecution witnesses has not been corroborated by other evidence that is available on record. Therefore, it will not be safe to set aside the judgment of the trial court with the available evidence. In the result, the judgment dated May 2, 2017 passed by the Sessions Judge, Kanyakumari district is hereby confirmed”.
The bench said, “This case is a classic example, where the police had failed to prove the guilt of the accused on account of their lethargic attitude and they had investigated the case in a slight manner, as if it is a case of minor offences. The prosecution had shown prosecution witnesses 1 to 4 as eyewitness to the occurrence and among them PW4/sister of the deceased had deposed in her cross that she has been living with her husband in Tuticorin since her marriage and her deposition that she was present at the time of attack by the accused persons, is pinching and pricking us to differ with the view of the trial court. It is no doubt true that the deceased was murdered by way of indiscriminate attack either by Aruval or Iron rod or bricks, but there is no iota of evidence to establish that the it was the accused persons, who had caused the murder and the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubts as to whether the accused persons were really responsible for the death of the deceased”.
The prosecution case was that on August 12, 2007, a complaint was preferred by the brother of the deceased stating that the five accused attacked him, his father, his brother and sister in connection with a dispute regarding letting out sewage water in the lane, thereby abutting the house of his father-in-law. It was further alleged that the accused who were all relatives attacked the complainant and his relatives with iron pipe, as a result of which, they all sustained severe injuries and his deceased brother succumbed to death in the hospital. A case was registered and the trial court acquitted all the accused. Aggrieved, the father of deceased filed the present appeal.
The bench said the prosecution in the present case on hand had failed to prove the motive and its failure to prove motive for crime has diluted the entire case of the prosecution. In this case admittedly, the four witnesses were stated to be eyewitnesses to the occurrence, but a glance at the cross examination of complainant indicates the fact that there was no previous enmity existed between the accused and him.
In this case as rightly observed by the trial court, as per the different versions of prosecution witnesses, even the place of occurrence was highly doubtful, as each one had indicated different places of incident. Thus, there was no corroboration in their evidences, which lead us to come to a conclusion that the guilt of the accused had not been duly established, the bench added.
