HC lets off woman charged with murder in 2 hearings

NEW DELHI: Setting an example of swift justice, the Delhi high court heard and decided a murder appeal within two hearings of it being admitted. A bench of Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Mukta Gupta on Tuesday acquitted a woman convicted of killing her employee on the ground of shoddy police investigation and lack of evidence. The accused had filed an appeal against her conviction in July.
On the first date, the bench admitted her appeal and directed the defence to wrap up arguments on the next hearing - September 22. The same day the court also heard the prosecution and reserved its orders. The verdict was pronounced on Tuesday.
According to the prosecution, accused Shahnaz approached a central Delhi police station to lodge a missing report of her employee who left office but never reached his village. In her complaint filed in October 2010, she said Rakesh resigned, collected his dues and left for home. But few days later she received news from relatives that he was missing.
Two months later, a relative deposed before police that on the last day of his work Rakesh had a major altercation with Shahnaz and the family suspected her for his disappearance. Police told the court that they received a tip-off that Shahnaz got Rakesh killed and arrested her. The prosecution argued that, on the basis of her disclosure, they recovered Rakesh's body from Sector 26, Rohini.
Police convinced the trial court that Shahnaz was behind the crime and charged her with murder, which handed her a life term. But during the appeal hearing, HC agreed with defence lawyer Sumeet Verma that police investigation was full of errors. Verma pointed out that police not only failed to prepare a site plan but didn't conduct a DNA test of the body to conclusively prove it to be of Rakesh's.