New Delhi: Values, a 10 -year -old Dalit girl Shanti (name changed), a thirst on a ceiling Summer Day of 2009, arrived in a tubewell to quench her thirst. He was the last someone saw him alive. Later, a tubewell operator was accused of raping and killing him. His father found his body from a histor and filed a police complaint on May 27, 2009.
The trial court convicted the accused for rape and murder in December 2012 and honored the death sentence. Allahabad HC investigated the evidence and in 2022, retained the sentence, but reduced the sentence of imprisonment for the rest of his life. On the appeal, on December 2, 2024, an SC bench of Justice, as Oka, Ahsanuddin Amanullah and AG Masih, acquitted the man, stating that he was not given proper legal assistance during testing, which prejuded his right to defense.
The goat-pioneering parents of a 10-year-old child will not understand the intricacies of the legal process. The sentence of the accused was the only consolation for him, thinking that his unfortunate daughter was judged. For him, SC’s decision would mean that his daughter’s killer becomes unpublished.
If the SC can detect the dazzling lacquer in a man’s punishment, is the trial court and HC judges are not well trained to train proofs or sick to follow procedures during a test? What about the accused? If he had not committed a crime, who would have given compensation for 13 years spent in jail? Should the police be punished for its faulty investigation, due to which a minor girl was acquitted in the heinous crime of rape and murder?
In two years, separate benches under the leadership of Justice Oka have acquitted a dozen people, who were sentenced to life or death by trial courts and HCs on different grounds – technical for lack of evidence – technical – and concluded that the prosecution failed to prove the case ‘beyond appropriate doubts’.
