HC grants bail to second convict in view of “extremely weak” evidence

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday suspended the life sentence handed down to Sachin Andure, convicted for the fatal shooting of anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, in view of “extremely weak” evidence against him, and granted him bail during pendency of his appeal against the conviction

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday suspended the life sentence handed down to Sachin Andure, convicted for the fatal shooting of anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar, in view of “extremely weak” evidence against him, and granted him bail during pendency of his appeal against the conviction.

There are “fair chances” of Andure getting acquitted in the appeal, the division bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal and Justice Ranjitsinha Bhonsale said while granting bail to the second convict in the case. The court had granted bail to his co-convict Sharad Kalaskar, in April this year.

Andure, a resident of Sambhajinagar, has a Master’s degree in Commerce from Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, and worked as an accountant at a cloth shop when he was arrested in August 2018.

“The evidence against the applicant (Andure) is very weak, even by prima facie observations, without analysing the evidence in depth,” said the bench. “The applicant is in custody on the basis of this weak piece of evidence for about six years from the arrest in this case,” the bench added.

The investigating agencies later identified the two shooters as Kalaskar and Andure. Apart from them the prosecution had also roped in Sanatan Sanstha activists Dr Virendrasing Tawade and two others.

On May 10, 2024, a special CBI court in Pune convicted and sentenced Kalaskar and Andure to life imprisonment for killing the rationalist, but acquitted Dr Tawade and two others for want of cogent evidence.

The trial court had convicted Andure based on the evidence of two “eye-witnesses” -- a sweeper working with the Pune Municipal Corporation and a morning walker. The high court, however, found the evidence of both the eye-witnesses “extremely weak”, as they had seen the shooters from a distance and the sweeper had identified the shooters in court after a long gap of 7 years and 8 years, respectively.

The high court also found the third piece of evidence against Andure weak - his extra-judicial confession made to a Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar resident -- as the disclosure came five years later and there was no corroboration to the claim.

“There is nothing to show that the Applicant was so close to him (the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar resident) that he would confess his crime before this witness,” the bench said, adding that there was no connecting piece of evidence to show how the CBI officer investigating the case learnt that the Applicant had made a confession to this witness.