SC quashes death penalty on 6-yr-old rape-murder citing lapses in probe

New Delhi: In a 2010 case of rape and murder of a six-year-old girl, the Supreme Court has quashed the conviction and death penalty of an accused man, observing that there were severe lapses in probing the case, taking it far from established against him, PTI reported.

The accused approached the Supreme Court after, in October 2015, the Bombay High Court upheld a trial court verdict, convicting him and sentencing him to death. A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice BR Gavai quashed the high court order and said that the accused might be set at liberty forthwith if not required in any other cases.

However, the bench, including justices Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol, acknowledged that it was confirmed that an unfortunate incident took a priceless life at a tender age, terrifyingly destroying and extinguishing it.

"Despite such painful realities being part of this case, we cannot hold within law, the prosecution to have undergone all necessary lengths and efforts to take the steps necessary for driving home the guilt of the appellant and that of none else in the crime," the bench said in its judgement delivered on Friday.

"There are, in fact, yawning gaps in the chain of circumstances rendering it far from being established-pointing to the guilt of the appellant," it said.

In the case, in which FIR was lodged in June 2010, and the trial court issued the accused's sentence on November 2014, the arrested person was accused of raping the child, murdering her and disposing of her body in a drain to destroy evidence.

The SC observed that there were no witnesses for the crime but circumstantial evidence.

"The prosecution case is primarily based, not on ocular evidence but on the confessional statement of the appellant leading to the recovery of incriminating articles and through scientific analysis establishing his guilt. The sheet-anchor of the case being the DNA analysis report...," it said.

"The prosecution case is primarily based, not on ocular evidence but on the confessional statement of the appellant leading to the recovery of incriminating articles and through scientific analysis establishing his guilt. The sheet-anchor of the case being the DNA analysis report...," it said.

But there were irregularities throughout the probe. There wasn't enough evidence to back the DNA evidence. There were delays in sending the samples collected for analysis, the alleged confession statement by the accused was never read to him in his vernacular language, and the basis of adding him as suspect at the first instance remains a mystery, the court noted.

Further, it added that there were investigation officers who changed the time and again on the case, which was "surprising and unexplained".