'Fabricated & Baseless': Gujarat Court Acquits Hearing & Speech Impaired Murder Accused, Engages Experts To Aid In Trial

In a significant decision, a sessions court in Ahmedabad, Gujarat recently acquitted a hearing and verbally impaired man accused of a woman's murder while taking help of special needs and language experts in the field in order to explain the court proceedings to the accused. Shivchandra Tamil, working as a labourer at Ahmedabad railway station–who originally belongs to Tamil Nadu–was accused of the murder of a woman who was purportedly hearing and verbally impaired, after she allegedly refused to have sexual intercourse with him. Thus, in order to explain the court proceedings to the acused the court of Additional Principal Sessions Judge SL Thakker also asked Special Educator for hearing and verbally impaired persons G. Suresh to be present during the trial through video conference from Tamil Nadu. Notably, the court of Judge Thakker has been specially designated to hear matters as per Section 84 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD), 2016.Additionally, Assistant Legal Aid Defence Counsel M. Gokulakrishnan who knows Tamil had joined the proceedings through video conferencing from Madurai, Tamil Nadu to aid the accused.Along with this, during the charge framing proceedings, both the experts as well as advocate Ajay Choksi–who 'pro-bono' appeared for the accused–and Dr. Elizabeth Christian, an expert in Tamil and resident of Ahmedabad was also present, who translated Tamil into English during the court proceedings. The court in its June 3 order noted that with the help of these individuals, the judicial proceedings, its procedure and the charges framed against the accused were explained to him (para 4). Case in briefThe prosecution alleged that the accused had asked the deceased woman to have sexual intercourse with him, and when the victim refused, he attacked her by inflicting blows to her abdomen with a knife, killed her and thereafter fled from the scene.Since the Investigating Officer did not understand sign language, the assistance of a sign language expert (Ashwinbhai Vegda) was sought, and it was through him that all the information concerning the alleged murder and the accused's alleged admission of having committed the crime was obtained by the IO.Interpreter did not understand Tamil, not reliable witnessThe Court, however, found several loopholes in the testimony of Vegda as it noted that though he claimed to have communicated with the accused using sign language, there was no record of the physical postures or gestures used by either party, nor any confirmation that the accused understood these gestures.“There is no mention in the panchnama (official report) of what gestures Mr. Ashwinbhai Vegda used to communicate with the accused, how he conveyed the questions, and what gestures the accused used to reply”, the Court's order reads [para 28.2].The court also noted that the panchnamas related to the arrest, discovery of weapon and crime scene reconstruction contained no such records, and that no videography was presented in court to support these interactions.After perusing the record and the testimonies, the court in its order among various observations, noted that the Investigating Officer had admitted to not following the suggestions made by FSL on videography, photography of the incident spot and to also make a rough sketch of the same. The court further noted that the investigating officer did not make any inquiry as to whether the interpreter/sign language expert engaged by the prosecution was knowledgeable in Tamil language.The court further observed that the interpreter admitted that he did not speak Tamil or Tamil sign language, and thus, it noted, the way in which he questioned the accused, who does not speak Gujarati or understand sign language raises a doubt and he does not appear to be credible and reliable witness.The court said that there was no mention in the Panchnama about what kind of gestures the interpreter used to talk to the accused and what posture he showed when asking questions and what posture the accused showed in response to him.IO did not interrogate himself, no independent witnessesThe court noted that the IO himself did not "personally interrogate" the accused and as per the IO, the accused was interrogated through the interpreter who allegedly understood the sign language of the verbally impaired persons; thus IO got to know of all the details through the interpreter. The court thereafter noted that the interpreter in his testimony did not state that the accused had demanded physical intercourse from the deceased on the night of the incident and had murdered her when she refused.The court observed that the IO had not explained as to where all these details came from. It said that since the IO himself does not know any sign language or understand Tamil, there was no possibility of him having questioned the accused on his own.It noted that in the present case, no eyewitnesses were found during the investigation and there were no independent evidence...

'Fabricated & Baseless': Gujarat Court Acquits Hearing & Speech Impaired Murder Accused, Engages Experts To Aid In Trial

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