NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday acquitted four men sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court for allegedly abducting and gangraping a woman in 2018, saying the investigation was not upto the mark.
Allowing the appeal filed by the four men challenging the trial court’s judgment, the high court said no incriminating word had been said by the woman and her parents and there was not enough material on record to prove the case of prosecution. “Investigation is also not upto the mark as neither PCR form nor CDR of mobile of ‘G’ (woman) were placed on record.
Keeping in mind the fact that ‘G’ was major at the relevant time, the DNA report, which was not even put to the accused under Section 313 CrPC, does not carry any value. Resultantly, we allow the appeal and acquit all the accused persons of the charges,” a bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Manoj Jain said in its verdict.
The high court said the trial court has not given any weightage to the fact that the woman made a statement before the police on July 29, 2018 in which she accused the men of abducting her and forcibly establishing physical relations with her, and thereafter, when she was produced before the magistrate, she claimed that she had left the home on her own and reiterated the same version in the witness box.
However, later she changed her statement and deposed before the trial court that she knew all the four men as they were residents of her native village but did not utter anything further against them.
It said no effort was made to obtain the call records and added that holding back such a valuable piece of evidence has to be taken as a circumstance against the prosecution.