Wrong body, wrong man: Calcutta High Court acquits accused in 2012 murder

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has acquitted Pintu Saha, who had remained in custody since 2012, holding that contradictions in medical evidence and serious investigative lapses created doubt over the identity of the deceased and failed to establish a complete chain of circumstantial evidence.

The case arose from the recovery of an unidentified, decomposed body from the Damodar River at Balighat under Mouza Krishnanagar, within Barjora police station limits, at around 1 pm on June 27, 2012. The body bore multiple sharp injuries, including a severed palm, and the inquest recorded that the name “Manik” was tattooed

on the forearm.

The prosecution alleged that the deceased, identified by his parents as their 18-year-old son, had left home on the evening of June 25, 2012, did not return, and was last seen later that night riding a motorcycle with the accused as a pillion rider.

Acting on information allegedly received from the family, police detained Saha on June 27, 2012, released him, and rearrested him on July 1, 2012. A trial court later convicted him of murder and causing disappearance of evidence and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The High Court bench of Justices Rajasekhar Mantha and Ajay Kumar Gupta noted that while the parents stated their son was 18 years old, the autopsy doctor assessed the age of the body as approximately 34 years, raising doubt as to whether the autopsy was conducted on the body of the alleged victim.

It also observed that although the severed palm was recovered separately, no autopsy report of the palm was produced, and that the mother stated the tattoo was on the left arm, while the autopsy recorded it on the right forearm. Further, the prosecution relied on the “last seen together” theory, but the alleged witness was neither cited in the charge sheet nor examined promptly, despite being present at the police station on the day the body was recovered. Reliance on hearsay evidence of family members, the court held, was insufficient.

The court also noted that a seizure witness denied the presence of the accused and that forensic examination failed to link the seized articles to the deceased.

The bench also pointed to the absence of motive, failure to investigate the recovery of the victim’s motorcycle, and lack of evidence linking the accused to the disposal of the body. The court directed that the accused be released from custody.