The court observed that a person can only be convicted on the basis of explicit evidence.
Bombay:
Observing that a person can only be sentenced on the basis of explicit evidence and not just on moral grounds, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction and life sentence awarded to an accused in a rape and rape case. murder.
Mohan Jadhav (24), a resident of Raigad, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court in 2015 for an offense under Articles 302 (murder) and 376 (rape) of the IPC .
Jadhav, however, challenged his conviction and conviction in the High Court claiming he was innocent.
The prosecution told the court that while there were no eyewitnesses in the case, the police had relied on circumstantial evidence to arrest Jadhav and secure his conviction.
Police were said to have found Jadhav walking in fear near where the body of the 20-year-old victim was found.
The prosecution argued that the accused also claimed in front of a friend that he killed a woman with another person.
However, the court ruled that Jadhav walking in a frightened state was not sufficient evidence. He noted that the police found no direct evidence or eyewitness testimony linking Jadhav to the crime.
“The cardinal principle of criminal case law is that a case can only be considered proven when there is certain and explicit evidence and no person can be convicted on pure moral conviction,” said a college of Judges PB Varale and PD Naik.
Given the differences in the evidence, the accused is undoubtedly entitled to the benefit of the doubt, he said, while setting aside the order of the trial court.
