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Chandigarh: Blood-stained clothes not enough to prove guilt, court acquits 2 in murder case
The case dates back to December 29, 2009, when fruit seller Rajesh was found lying in a pool of blood in bushes near the four storey building in Sector 38 West
The Chandigarh district court has acquitted two men, who were juveniles at the time of the offence, in a 2009 murder case, holding that the prosecution failed to establish a complete chain of circumstantial evidence linking them to the crime.
Additional sessions judge and children’s court judge Harpreet Kaur allowed the appeal filed by Vijay and Vishal, setting aside the July 2018 judgment of the juvenile justice board that had convicted them under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC and directed that they be sent to an observation/special home for three years each.
The case dates back to December 29, 2009, when fruit seller Rajesh was found lying in a pool of blood in bushes near the four storey building in Sector 38 West. He was taken to PGI, where he was declared dead on arrival. A postmortem found that he had died of haemorrhagic shock caused by a stab injury to his left thigh from a sharp edged weapon.
The prosecution case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence as there was no eyewitness to the murder. During the investigation, blood-stained pants were allegedly recovered at the instance of the two appellants. A black pant was recovered from Vijay and a sky blue pant from Vishal.
The court, however, found the blood evidence insufficient to establish their involvement. The Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) report showed the deceased had blood group AB, while Vijay also had blood group AB and Vishal had blood group B. Blood group AB was found on Vijay’s pant, while blood group B was found on Vishal’s pant.
The judge observed that merely finding the same blood group on Vijay’s clothes did not establish that the blood belonged to the deceased, particularly when Vijay himself had blood group AB. In Vishal’s case, the blood found on his clothes was B group, which did not match the deceased’s AB group.
The court further noted that the prosecution had failed to produce other corroborative circumstances such as evidence that the appellants were last seen with Rajesh, a motive for the murder, an extra-judicial confession, previous enmity or relevant call detail records. The alleged knife used in the murder was also not recovered from the appellants.
Relying on Supreme Court (SC) precedents, the court said that in a case based on circumstantial evidence, every link in the chain must be firmly established and the circumstances must point conclusively towards the guilt of the accused.
“Neither the so called incriminating circumstance has been proved by the cogent and admissible evidence nor do they form an unbroken chain pointing unequivocally towards the guilt,” the court held.
The court accordingly set aside the juvenile justice board’s judgment and acquitted Vijay and Vishal of the murder charge, allowing their appeal.
