india

Updated: Mar 06, 2019 08:55 IST

In the first ruling of its kind, the Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside its own judgment of 2009 and set free six convicts sent to death row, concluding that they had been “falsely implicated” in a 16-year-old case of rape and multiple murder.

Exercising its extraordinary powers, the court also awarded compensation of Rs 5 lakh to each of the six convicts for the time they spent in prison and ordered a further investigation of the crime to identify the real rapist-murderers.

The six were Ankush Maruti Shinde, Rajya Appa Shinde, Ambadas Laxman Shinde, Raju Mhasu Shinde, Bapu Appa Shinde and Surya alias Suresh Shinde

Reviewing the top court’s own judgment in a 2003 rape and mass murder case in Nashik district of Maharashtra, a three-judge bench comprising justices AK Sikri, Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah held that a case hadn’t been made out against the six persons on death row.

The court held that there was “no fair investigation and fair trial in the case”. It said: “The accused in the present case were nomadic tribes and falsely implicated and are roped in. Except one, all of them are in jail since last 16 years. All were facing the hanging sword of death penalty.”

The case pertains to an incident of rape and murder of five members of a family in a village in Nashik district. On June 5, 2003, at around 10.30 in the night, a family of seven, who lived in a guava orchard, was attacked by a gang of seven to eight people.

They robbed the family, raped a woman and killed five persons. The police arrested the six persons, including one juvenile, and tried them for rape and murder.

A trial court in Nashik sentenced all the six to death in the case. In 2007, the Bombay high court modified the trail court verdict and reduced the sentence of the three accused to life imprisonment.

In 2009, the state and the convicts filed an appeal in the Supreme Court challenging their sentences. A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court in 2009 did not agree with the findings of the high court and restored death penalty against all the six.

Justice Shah, who wrote Tuesday’s judgment, held that the case of the prosecution rested on the statements of two eyewitnesses, who, according to the bench, were unreliable and untrustworthy.

This case was heard by the bench after the Supreme Court in 2014 held that review petitions in death cases should be heard in open court and by a bench comprising three judges. The court held that “the conviction cannot rest on such identification, there is no other evidence, either scientific and/or other, corroborating the prosecution case. There is no forensic evidence corroborating the prosecution case. In fact, the DNA, fingerprints evidence do not support the case of the prosecution, and/or link the accused to the crime.”

Slamming poor investigation, the court directed further investigations saying: “We cannot lose sight of the fact that five persons have been killed/murdered, out of whom even one lady was raped. Therefore, it is the duty of the court to see that the real culprits are booked and are punished.”

The court also directed the “Chief Secretary, Home Department, State of Maharashtra to look into the matter and identify such erring officers/officials responsible for failure of a prosecution case, on account of sheer negligence or because of culpable lapses, real culprits are out of the clutches of law and because of whose lapses the case has resulted into acquittal in a case where five persons were killed brutally and one lady was subjected to even rape.”

“This is an unprecedented judgment. The Supreme Court has chosen to be ultimately be right than be persistently in error especially when it comes to a matter of death sentence,” said senior advocate Sanjay Hedge, lauding the judgment. “After the judgment, it is for legislators and parliamentarians to consider if we should have the death sentence, when the highest court in the land has sentenced to death innocents. And had they been put to death there would have been no possibility of bringing them to life much less acquitting.”

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves too welcomed the ruling. “The acquittal is unusual and a rare one. Generally, convicts on death row are handed life sentences, but in this case the court found a flaw in the finding of various courts and corrected itself. It’s also a sign of a fatal flaw in our criminal justice system and the [fact that the] vigor that is required is missing.”