High Court acquits JD(U) ex-MLC’s son Rocky Yadav in 2016 road rage case

In September 2017, a sessions court in Gaya had sentenced Rocky Yadav, son of former JD (U) legislator Manorama Devi and two others to life imprisonment.

The Patna high court has acquitted Rakesh Ranjan, alias Rocky Yadav, son of former Janata Dal (United) legislator Manorama Devi, and two others in connection with the murder of 19-year-old Aditya Sachdeva in a 2016 road rage incident.

Rocky Yadav was convicted with the murder of 19-year-old Aditya Sachdeva in a 2016 road rage incident. (PTI File Photo)

In September 2017, a sessions court in Gaya had sentenced Rocky and two others — his cousin Tenni Yadav and his MLC mother’s bodyguard Rajesh Kumar — to life imprisonment. Rocky was convicted of killing Aditya, a Class 12 student and son of Gaya businessman Shyam Sundar Sachdeva, for overtaking his Range Rover SUV while coming to Gaya from Bodh Gaya on May 7, 2016.

However, a division bench of the Patna high court on Wednesday quashed the 2017 order of the Gaya court, saying the accused were entitled for “benefit of doubt” as the prosecution failed to establish their guilt by adducing clear, cogent, trustworthy and clinching evidence.

“All the appellants are acquitted of the charges leveled against them and held to be proved against them by the learned trial court. They be set at liberty forthwith if not required in any other case,” the bench comprising justices AM Badar and Harish Kumar noted in a 108-page order, uploaded on Thursday.

The additional sessions judge, Gaya, had also awarded five-year jail term to Rocky’s father and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Bindeshwari Prasad Yadav alias Bindi Yadav in connection with the case. Bindi Yadav, who was out on bail, died due to Covid-19 on July 23, 2020.

According to police, while heading to Gaya on May 7, 2016, Rocky first fired a warning shot from his Italian-made .380-bore Beretta pistol as Sachdeva overtook his SUV. When Sachdeva stopped his car, Rocky thrashed him before shooting him dead, according to the case details.

While Sachdeva’s friends, who accompanied him at the time of the incident, turned hostile during the trial, it was the police investigation that led to Rocky’s conviction.

Rocky, who was also a member of the Delhi Rifle Club, had got the pistol’s licence using sports quota. The licence bore an address from Maoist-affected Chatra district in Jharkhand. The prosecution claimed that the licensed pistol — and 19 live cartridges — seized from Rocky was used in the commission of murder of Aditya.

The high court, however, found that “FSL expert Dilip Kumar could not produce any material to back his conclusion that retrieved two deformed bullets were fired from the Beretta pistol, which was seized from the Hot Mixed Plant of Bodh Gaya,” the division bench said.

Acquitting the accused in the case, the bench ordered: “The impugned judgment and order dated August 31, 2017 and September 6, 2017 respectively passed in the sessions trial between the parties by the learned Additional Sessions Judge-I, Gaya, thereby convicting the appellants/convicted accused and sentencing them accordingly, is quashed and set aside.”