‘Inept probe’: SC acquits 12 lifers in 2008 murder case

New Delhi: Supreme Court on Tuesday came to the rescue of 12 life convicts, who had undergone a total sentence of 12 years in jail, acquitting all of them in a 2008 murder case in Assam by holding that proper investigation was not done by police.

Pointing fault in the probe, which could have been because of "ignorance, inefficiency or malicious motivation", the Supreme Court began its verdict by saying "an inept investigation or a scripted enquiry, both are fatal to criminal prosecution but the latter has lethal consequences when there is a possibility of totally innocent persons being crucified".

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran accepted advocate Talha Abdul Rahman's petition, which pointed out various loopholes in the prosecution's story. The court said there was no sufficient proof to prove culpability of the accused in the case and set aside the orders of the trial court as well as the Gauhati HC of conviction and sentence. It asked Assam govt to take steps to give proper training to its police force.

"It is unfortunate that the police officer who reached the spot immediately after the incident took place, failed to follow due procedure to put the criminal investigation in motion as per the CrPC," the bench said. "Be it ignorance, inefficiency or malicious motivation, the crime is left unresolved, and considerable time and money has been spent in the prosecution of 16 persons, some of whom died during trial and the others suffered incarceration for long periods," it said.

The state and its home department "would do well to better equip their officers in investigating crimes and educating them of due procedure", the bench said.

SC noted that despite police having reached the spot immediately after the assault, in which one person was allegedly killed and two others injured grievously, no attempt was made to collect the blood spilled at the spot, so as to match it with that of the deceased and the injured.

The bench said weapons seized were neither sent for forensic analysis nor were the accused confronted to eyewitnesses or the doctor who conducted postmortem.

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