NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has acquitted the main accused in a 1996 triple murder case here, saying the investigation has failed to prove his guilt.
The case pertains to the killing of the owner of a weight loss centre, Personal Point Health Clinic, and two of his female employees in June 1996. MCD contractor Subash Gupta was the prime accused.
Setting aside Gupta's conviction by a trial court, a bench of Justices S Muralidhar and I S Mehta said while the media had shaped the public perception regarding the guilt of the persons involved in the case, the courts should not be influenced by it.
"A dispassionate adjudication should be impervious to public perception of who might or might not be guilty. The present case points to a failure of investigation which has the inevitable result of acquittal of those put on trial," the bench said allowing Gupta's appeal against his conviction.
The high court, based on the evidence before it, was not convinced that Gupta alone could have committed the three murders, as held by the trial court which had convicted and sentenced him to life imprisonment in March 2000.
"Where there are multiple murders involved and a complex set of facts where abduction happened at one place and the murders in different locations and the bodies being thrown in different locations, it is impossible for one person to single-handedly do all of those acts," the high court said.
It also dismissed the state's appeal against the acquittal of the eight other co-accused in the case, saying it found no reason to disagree with the trial court's reasoning and conclusion holding them not guilty of the offences, including that of conspiring with Gupta to kill the three persons.
The court called for dispassionate adjudication, saying the case had attracted considerable media attention when it happened in 1996 and details of the investigation, to which the media was privy, had shaped public perception about the guilt of those put on trial.
"Two decades later when that perception is not borne out, it invites a reflection on the criminal justice process.
Courts must test the evidence gathered during investigation in the calm interiors of court halls, uninfluenced by the discussions in the media.
"The process of trial tests whether the distance from 'may have committed the crime' to 'has beyond reasonable doubt committed the crime' has been covered. In this case, the prosecution has failed to complete that journey. Suspicion, however strong, cannot and should not substitute proof," the bench said.
The prosecution had contended that Gupta had conspired with the other accused to abduct and murder the three - Dr Sunil Kaul and his two employees, Sujata Saha and Deepa Gupta.
It had claimed the accused was in love with Sujata and as she had not reciprocated his feelings, he had hatched the conspiracy to kill her and the others.
The prosecution had also alleged that Kaul was killed as the accused suspected that he was having an affair with Sujata.
The high court disagreed with the prosecution's contentions, saying the evidence only showed that he was "obsessed" with Sujata, "but not to the extent of wanting to eliminate her".
It also said the blood-stained mats and fibres found from Gupta's car lose their significance as evidence since the recoveries were neither made in the presence of independent witnesses, nor pursuant to any disclosure statement by him.
"Therefore, not much importance can be attached to such recoveries. While on this circumstance, it should also be noticed that the blood-stains on the mat are not shown to match the blood group of any of the deceased persons," the bench has said in its 55-page judgement.