HIGH COURT SETS ASIDE DEATH SENTENCE OF MAN ACCUSED OF MURDER; GRANTS HIM Rs 5L COMPENSATION
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A bench of Justice A K Jayasankaran Nambiar & Justice Syam Kumar V M observed that the prosecution has miserably failed to ‘place legally sustainable evidence to substantiate any of the charges framed against the appellant” While setting aside the conviction part of the judgment, the court awarded a sum of Rs. 5 Lakh as compensation to Gireesh Kumar for wrongful imprisonment for a period of about 10 years during which he lived.
The bench, approving the criminal initiating and Kumar’s appeal against his conviction & death sentence noted that the circumstantial evidence will not conclusively point at Kumar as the perpetrator of the crime & testimony as well as evidence produced by the police to implicate him was “plants” cannot be disregarded.
The High Court not only acquitted Kumar while pointing that he had been in imprisonment from the year 2013 when he was arrested till now and was given capital punishment in the year 2018. It elaborated it as, … ‘…thus throughout his life imprisonment the shadow of death has been steadily falling on him’.
The bench said as per Indian constitution it was not possible to make certain liberties & freedoms so dubious, insignificant & negligible that it could be deprived of a citizen by quixotic incrimination in criminal offenses which is followed up with a slipshod investigation & an improper appreciation of evidence which imposes the highest of all punishments, of death upon him”.
The High Court noted that the faith that members of the general public place on the system is not only undermined by such occurrences but it goes to the basis of the foundation of rule of law on which this republic is built. It further said, “This is true even with regard to a citizen with allegedly doubtful antecedents.”
The bench also observed that in the given case where the appellant was compelled to serve around ten years of imprisonment to name it and the death row “owing to the lack of infrastructure within the various organs of the state apparatus that encompasses investigation agencies as well as the judiciary”, the ends of justice can only be met if the State is ordered to pay appellant for violation of his fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
The High Court observed that despite no legal rational for arraying him an accused let alone subject him to the ignominy of incarceration for 10 long years, for the most part of which there had been hanging over his head on the applicability of the death penalty.
“Thus, we consider it proper to affirm the state government’s affirmative action by awarding the amount of Rs 5,00,000 as compensation to the appellant (Kumar) for the above said count and the amount should be provided to him within a period of three months from this judgment.”
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Written by: ADVOCATE ANIK
