New Delhi, November 8
The law does not permit courts to punish an accused on the basis of moral conviction or on suspicion alone, the Supreme Court said while acquitting three men sentenced to death for the gangrape and murder of a woman in Delhi’s Chhawla area in 2012.
The court made the observation while noting that a kind of agony and frustration may be caused to the society in general and to the family of the victim in particular if the accused involved in the heinous crime go unpunished or are acquitted.
The bench said the prosecution failed to provide leading, cogent, clinching and clear evidence, including those related to DNA profiling and call detail records (CDRs), against the accused, and said the trial court also acted as a “passive umpire”.
The three men were accused of abducting, gangraping and brutally killing the 19-year-old woman in February 2012. Her mutilated body was found three days after she was abducted.
A bench of Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi acquitted the convicts in a 40-page order passed on Monday.
The bench said since the prosecution failed to bring home the charges levelled against the accused beyond reasonable doubt, the court was left with no alternative but to acquit the accused, though involved in a very heinous crime.
“It may be true that if the accused involved in the heinous crime go unpunished or are acquitted, a kind of agony and frustration may be caused to the society in general and to the family of the victim in particular, however, the law does not permit the courts to punish the accused on the basis of moral conviction or on suspicion alone,” the bench said.
