Life term to 3 for murder, cops criticised for lapses in probe
18 Oct 2012 6:09 AM IST
A Delhi court has sentenced three members of a family to life imprisonment for killing their neighbour, relying on the testimony of sole witness and ruing police failure to gather some key evidence due to defective probe.
Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Jain sentenced Central Delhi residents Naval Kishore, Devender and Chander Prakash to life imprisonment for killing their neighbour Dalip by stabbing and shooting him on 16 January last year.
The trio were held guilty on the testimony of Dalip?s brother-in-law Virender Kumar, who deposed that he had seen Naval and Devender assaulting Dalip with a knife and Chander shooting him with a country-made pistol after which they had fled on a motorcycle.
While convicting the trio, the court, however, noted the prosecution had failed to establish the motive or ‘prove the recovery’ of the weapons used in crime and the only evidence that remained was the testimony of eye-witness Virender.
‘No doubt in the instant case, prosecution has failed to prove the connected evidence such as recovery of knife, recovery of motorcycle and recovery of pistol. Recovery of pistol was the most relevant evidence to bring home the guilt of accused persons as it would have helped prosecution to establish that the recovered cartridges were fired from the said pistol.
Unfortunately due to defects in investigation, prosecution failed to establish the recovery beyond the shadow of all reasonable doubts,’ said the court lamenting that ‘the prosecution failed to prove the above connected evidence.’
Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Jain sentenced Central Delhi residents Naval Kishore, Devender and Chander Prakash to life imprisonment for killing their neighbour Dalip by stabbing and shooting him on 16 January last year.
The trio were held guilty on the testimony of Dalip?s brother-in-law Virender Kumar, who deposed that he had seen Naval and Devender assaulting Dalip with a knife and Chander shooting him with a country-made pistol after which they had fled on a motorcycle.
While convicting the trio, the court, however, noted the prosecution had failed to establish the motive or ‘prove the recovery’ of the weapons used in crime and the only evidence that remained was the testimony of eye-witness Virender.
‘No doubt in the instant case, prosecution has failed to prove the connected evidence such as recovery of knife, recovery of motorcycle and recovery of pistol. Recovery of pistol was the most relevant evidence to bring home the guilt of accused persons as it would have helped prosecution to establish that the recovered cartridges were fired from the said pistol.
Unfortunately due to defects in investigation, prosecution failed to establish the recovery beyond the shadow of all reasonable doubts,’ said the court lamenting that ‘the prosecution failed to prove the above connected evidence.’
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