New Delhi: A six-year-old girl went missing in 2018. She was last seen with her stepfather. When he was arrested eight days later, he led police to the spot where her charred remains were found.
The Supreme Court found this evidence weak and acquitted him of murder. No other evidence was found linking the man to the murder except that he was the last person seen with the child according to a neighbor and it was he who led police to the victim’s bones. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran acquitted him, saying the investigation was botched and left many questions unanswered. “In the present case, the murder of a six-year-old girl went unpunished and her stepfather was imprisoned for mere speculation,” SC said. In the Chhattisgarh case, what tipped the scales towards the stepfather, Rohit Jangde, was the specificity of the interpretation given by the Supreme Court in previous rulings on the admissibility of the accused’s statements leading to the discovery of facts relating to the crime – in this case, the recovery of the girl’s body. More than 65 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that statements by an accused that lead to the discovery of facts relating to the crime will only be admissible as evidence when made while in custody.
Justices Kumar and Chandran also relied on a similar interpretation that had been used in a judgment delivered nearly 100 years ago by the Calcutta HC. Interestingly in the 1931 judgment the then Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court had expressed concern that the law allowed reliance on a statement given to the police leading to discovery of the truth only when the person was in police custody and termed it absurd, but left it to the legislature to make appropriate amendments.
Relying on these decades-old rulings, the Supreme Council described the evidence convicting Jangde as weak. Justice Chandran said that even if the evidence was accepted, it would not by itself prove the guilt of the stepfather. “The knowledge of the accused, which led to the discovery of the bone remains, although inadmissible under Article 27, would at the same time be admissible evidence under Article 8, which is in itself weak evidence.
He said that evidence under Article 8 could only provide corroboration and could not by itself lead to conviction. The bench, which acquitted the accused, said, “The long period during which no complaint was lodged regarding the missing child and no one questioned the accused, despite the family and the police being informed that she had gone with the accused, tips the balance in favor of the accused… It is also significant that since the body of the crime has not been found, no time of death has been fixed. We are, therefore, unable to uphold the conviction of the accused and must necessarily give him the benefit of the doubt.”
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