Aarushi murder: HC lashes trial judge for acting like 'film
director' with fanciful imagination(Eds: Edits throughout to trim)By Dinesh RaiAllahabad, Sept 13 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court haslacerated the trial court judge in the Aarushi murder case,saying he acted like a film director to create a fictionalscenario, used fallacious analogy and ignored the basic tenetsof law.
High court justices B K Narayana and A K Mishra listed alitany of errors, missteps and fanciful deductions by thetrial judge while convicting dentist couple Nupur and RajeshTalwar for the double murders of their daughter Aarushi anddomestic help Hemraj in May 2008.
"The trial Judge is supposed to be fair and transparentand should act as a man of ordinary prudence and he should notstretch his imagination to infinity rendering the wholeexercise mockery of law," the court said.
Additional Sessions Judge Shyam Lal in Ghaziabad (UP) hadsentenced the Talwars to life imprisonment on November 28,2013 after finding them guilty on circumstantial evidence.
Lal has "prejudged things in his own fashion, drawnconclusion by embarking on erroneous analogy conjecturing tothe brim on apparent facts telling a different story propelledby vitriolic reasoning," the judges said in their orderyesterday to acquit the Talwars.
The court said the circumstantial evidence against thecouple was insufficient to hold them guilty, and that theyshould be given the benefit of doubt. A copy of the writtenjudgement was uploaded on the court website today.
Writing his own 10-page views in the 273-page judgement,Justice Mishra said that "like a film Director, the trialJudge has tried to thrust coherence amongst facts inalienablyscattered here and there but (has) not giving any coherence tothe idea as to what in fact happened".
He added that "by dint of fallacious analogy andreasoning" Lal surprisingly assumed "fictional animation" ofwhat actually happened inside and outside the Talwars' Noidaresidence on May 14-15, 2008, to provide "live and colourfuldescription of the incident".
Aarushi, who would have turned 14 on May 23, 2008, wasfound dead in her room in the Talwar residence on May 15morning by her parents. Her throat had been slit.
After a botched investigation by the U P Police, the CBItook over the case and arrested the parents on circumstantialevidence, which was used to convict them.
Justice Mishra said the trial judge convicted themwithout considering that in circumstantial evidence cases"things cannot be presumed and stuffed in a manner like thepresent one by adhering to self-created postulates then toroam inside the circle with all fanciful whim".
He said that the trial court could not act like a mathsteacher who was solving a mathematical question by analogyafter taking certain figure for granted.
"In all criminal trials, analogies must be drawn andconfined within the domain and realm of the evidence," hesaid. "It is admitted position to both the sides that no onein fact knew as to what happened."To base the entire reasoning solely on "guess work" andgive concrete shape to such assumption appears to be a "futileattempt," he said.
Justice Mishra said it was apparent that the trial judgewas "unmindful" of the basic tenets of law and itsapplicability, and had "failed" to properly appraise facts andevaluate evidence.
"Perhaps out of extra zeal and enthusiasm and on thebasis of self perception," the trial judge adopted partial andparochial approach in giving vent "to his own emotional beliefand conviction and thus tried to give concrete shape to hisown imagination stripped of just evaluation of evidence andfacts of this case," he said.
He observed that the entire judgement was, on the whole,a creation of "fanciful reasoning with pick and choosepresuming (of) facts ... thus, basing conclusion on unfoundedevidence".
The first suspect in the murder was the Talwars' domestichelp, 45-year-old Hemraj, who at the time was missing. But hisbody was recovered from the terrace of the house a day later.
PTI CORR SC VJSC.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.