The Supreme Court has set free eight persons convicted of murder by a sessions court of Rajasthan with a 12-year minor girl as a witness in a 1976 case of political rivalry between Raghunath Singh killed by members of the Ahir community who had formed a political party known as Azad Party.
A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ramesh Bindal quashed the earlier judgment and acquitted the appellants.
It held that the identity of the accused as assailants of the deceased has not been established by the court beyond reasonable doubt and the conviction cannot be sustained only on the basis of the alleged recovery of the weapons used.
'Cannot rely on deposition of 12-year-old'
The Court said it cannot rely on the deposition of 12-year-old girl Krishna, daughter of the deceased. Kanwarbai, the mother of the deceased, had reached the spot on being told by the girl and as such she cannot be an eye-witness as she could not identify a single accused by name in the trial court.
As far as the evidence of the minor witness is concerned, her testimony shows she got confused in identifying at least two accused and it is very unsafe to convict the accused on the basis of such a testimony when the only other eyewitness could not identify a single accused.
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