HC acquits murder accused after he spends 11 years behind bars

The accused was apprehended from his residence in Bihar on September 20, 2011, and two days later he was brought to Mumbai.

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Thursday set free a maid-servant sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his employer and stealing her cash and jewellery after he spent over 11 years behind bars.

On September 23, 2014, the sessions court convicted him of the murder primarily in view of the recovery of stolen articles and sentenced him to life imprisonment. (HT PHOTO)

The division bench of justice Ajay Gadkari and justice Milind Jadhav reversed the conviction of Radhe Zulidas Mandal after noticing gaping holes and contradictions in the prosecution case against him.

According to the prosecution, the incident had taken place on September 11, 2011 – barely ten days after Mandal had started working as house help for Bharati Shah, a resident of Anand Co-operative Housing Society in Andheri West.

The next morning, Shah was found dead in her bedroom and her personal belongings like two golden bangles, a gold chain and some cash were found stolen. The post-mortem revealed that the elderly woman was strangulated to death.

Radhe was apprehended by Bihar police from his residence in Rahina village of Madhubani district of Bihar on September 20, and two days later he was brought to the city.

Mandal was charged with murdering the senior citizen. In the case based on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution examined all 21 witnesses, including the complainant – the sister of the deceased, her neighbours, panch witnesses and the police officers involved in probing the case, to prove the charges against him.

Three years later, on September 23, 2014, the sessions court convicted him of the murder primarily in view of the recovery of stolen articles and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The high court, however, refused to accept that the recovery of the stolen articles from Mandal was proved beyond a reasonable doubt, as he was first arrested in Bihar and part of the stolen booty was purportedly recovered at the time of his arrest, but his arrest memorandum and the recovery panchanama was drawn at Mumbai.

The recovery panchanama is written in Marathi (a language not known to the accused, who only knew Hindi) and the arrest panchnama did not bear the signatures of any police officer from Bihar, instead, it carried the signatures of two Juhu police officers, who were not part of the team that had gone to Bihar to bring Mandal to Mumbai.

The high court also discarded the evidence of a neighbour who had last seen Mandal and the other servant (who is still absconding) entering and leaving the house of the deceased around 10:30 pm - around the time when the crime was committed. In this regard, the bench noted that on that day, the sister of the deceased had called the elderly woman twice – around 9:30 pm and 12:30 am, and the next morning went to check on her, as she had not answered both her calls.

“This clearly suggests that Bharti was in all probability murdered prior to 9:30 pm,” said the bench, rendering the last seen together theory unreliable.