New Delhi, Jan 28 A Delhi court has acquitted five men accused of murdering a milk supplier in Hari Nagar in 2012, holding that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and that the evidence, including CCTV footage and witness testimony, suffered from serious infirmities.
Additional Sessions Judge Pooja Talwar acquitted Sushil Kumar, Vipin Kumar, Ram Kishan, Kushal Pal Singh and Languria in the case registered under sections 302 (murder), 396 (dacoity with murder), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the IPC.
“The prosecution has not been able to establish a chain of evidence so complete as to establish that it was only the accused persons and nobody else who could have murdered the victim,” the court observed in the judgment dated January 27.
According to the prosecution, Ashok, who supplied milk in the Manak Vihar area, was found dead in his rented house on July 4, 2012, with an electric wire wrapped around his neck.
The prosecution alleged that Vipin, a co-villager of the deceased, along with the other accused, murdered Ashok after demanding money from him and fled with his mobile phone and around Rs 1.5 lakh in cash.
The court noted that while several witnesses claimed to have identified the accused from the footage obtained from the CCTV cameras installed in the locality, their testimonies were inconsistent and unreliable.
“This court had to be itself convinced that the persons visible in the footage were none other than the accused persons. However, from the footage or the photographs brought on record, it cannot be held that the persons visible in the footage were the accused persons only,” the court said.
“There is no denying the fact that a life has been lost, but only in the quest to search for the perpetrator, any person connected with the deceased in some manner cannot be held guilty,” it added.
On the alleged recoveries, including blood-stained clothes of Vipin and other articles, the court noted that even though the blood on the clothes matched the deceased as per the forensic report, the discrepancies in witness testimonies regarding the same aroused suspicion.
The court also noted the defence counsel's argument that such evidence could be planted was not far-fetched.
“Not only is the place of recovery not covered under the ambit of Section 27 of Evidence Act but the discrepancies in testimonies of recovery witnesses about the clothes and shoes being smeared with blood also appear to be suspicious," it observed.
Addressing the motive for the crime as presented by the prosecution, the court noted that neither the deceased's mobile phone nor the Rs 1.5 lakh stolen from him could be recovered from the accused persons.
