26 Yrs On, Punjab & Haryana High Court Acquits Murder Accused; Doubts Police Constable's Testimony

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has acquitted a man 26 years after he was accused of murdering the husband of a woman he was in relationship with, by assaulting and throwing the husband on a live railway track.

While doing so, a division bench of Justices Gurvinder Singh Gill and Jasjit Singh Bedi also expressed doubt as to the veracity of a Police constable's testimony who claimed that the deceased husband, who had lost a lot of blood due to amputation of both legs after being run over by a train, had named the accused back then.

"There is a doubt as to how and in what circumstances was the deceased able to narrate his name, etc. to the police party, particularly, in the circumstances when both his legs had been amputated and he must have lost a considerable amount of blood. This creates a doubt in the prosecution version," the judges observed.

Speaking for the bench Justice Bedi also raised doubts about the accused's motive to murder, when he was already residing with the deceased's wife. "It is not a case wherein there is any evidence of the deceased being a hindrance to the affair between his wife and the accused," it noted.

The Court thus allowed the appeal preferred by the accused back in 2004, after being convicted for murder in the case registered in the year 1999.

The prosecution had heavily relied on the statement of one Tarlok Chand who claimed to have last seen the deceased in the company of the accused.

However, the Court flagged that this information was disclosed by Tarlok Chand seven months after the incident, indicating that he had not seen anything and was just a "set-up" by the prosecution.

"It is indeed strange that despite the fact that the real brother of his brother-in-law was missing, he made absolutely no attempt to inform his family members or the police that he had seen the deceased in the company of the accused," said the Court.

It added that even if it is assumed that Tarlok Chand is not lying, there was a considerable gap of 6 to 8 hours between the time the accused was purportedly seen with deceased and the time when deceased was discovered on the railway track. "By no stretch of imagination can it be held that in 6 to 8 hours, there could have been no other intervening person who could have committed the offence, if at all," Court said.

Thus finding the evidence to be circumstantial and the chain of evidence to be incomplete, the Court reversed the conviction.

Mr. Aarav Gupta, Advocate as Amicus Curiae for the appellant.

Mr. Siddharth Attri, Addl.A.G., Punjab.

Title: Som Nath v. State of Punjab

Click here to read/download the order