Aarushi case: SC admits Hemraj's wife plea challenging Talwars' acquittal

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday admitted two petitions challenging the acquittal of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the murder case of their teen daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj.

The appeals have been filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Hemraj's wife Khumkala Banjade.

This comes days after the CBI moved the apex court to challenge the clean chit issued to Talwars.

The CBI, in its appeal said that the court’s clean chit to the Talwars were wrong on “many counts.”

Banjade, who had petitioned the Supreme Court in December, 2017, said the High Court had accepted that her husband was killed and the investigating agency or CBI cannot abandon its responsibility to uncover the murder.

"We've come to the Supreme Court for justice... the high court freed them (Talwars), they are killers... they should be punished," she had then said.

The Allahabad High Court in October, 2017 acquitted Rajesh and Nupur in the murder of their daughter Aarushi and their domestic help Hemraj in 2008.

Also Read: Talwars released after 4 years, go to Aarushi's grandparents' home

The verdict brought closure to a nine-year-ordeal for the parents of Aarushi who were alleged to have had killed the 14-year-old in a fit of rage for having an affair with Hemraj. They were initially found guilty by a CBI court.

The Talwars had walked out of Ghaziabad's Dasna prison in October 2017 after the Allahabad High Court cancelled the life sentence handed out to them by a lower court in 2013.

The Talwar’s daughter Aarushi was found dead, with her throat slit, inside her bedroom in their Noida residence in May 2008, just 14 days before her birthday.
Initial suspicion in the case was directed towards 45-year-old Hemraj, who had gone missing following the discovery of Aarushi’s body. However, the case took a new turn when his body was recovered the next day from the terrace of the house where the family lived in Noida.

The then chief minister Mayawati had handed over the case to the CBI following flak over UP Police’s shoddy investigation into the case which had by then garnered national headlines.

The Allahabad High Court, which had ordered release of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, had pointed out many loopholes in the CBI's case and made scathing observations about the trial court judge Shyam Lal for, "like a film director", "try to thrust coherence amongst facts inalienably scattered here and there".

The court convicted the couple based on circumstantial evidence offered by CBI.
According to investigators, the double murder was an inside job because the apartment had not been broken into and the "last seen" principle indicts the Talwars because the victims were in their presence before they were killed.

Police alleged that the Talwars were furious on discovery of the alleged affair between Aarushi and Hemraj but offered no evidence to substantiate this premise.

Both parents had denied charges of murder and instead insisted they were victims of botched investigations and unfair media coverage. According to them, this damaged their defence in court.