Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 24: A Division Bench of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court comprising Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Sanjay Dhar today set-aside life-imprisonment of Mohd Tanveer, who allegedly killed real sister over old enmity.
After hearing Advocate Ajay Singh Kotwal for the appellant whereas AAG Ravinder Gupta for the UT, DB observed, “the trial court has accepted that the motive for murder was pre-existing enmity between the deceased and the accused on account of the deceased having appeared as a witness in the previous case where the sister of the deceased was a victim”.
“The only document on the basis of which, the motive is said to be based upon is a statement under Section 161 CrPC of the deceased in the other case. Her age in that statement under Section 161 CrPC is shown to be between 10-11 years. However, the post-mortem report in this case reflects that the age of the deceased was 22 years”, DB said, adding “motive is one of the important circumstances in a case which has to be proved against the accused in a case which is entirely permitted on a circumstantial evidence. However, there may be cases where other circumstances go to unequivocally point to the involvement of the accused beyond all reasonable doubt in such a situation, even the absence of motive is there, a conviction is still be based upon but those cases are rare and far & few in between”.
‘The present case does not fall that category at all. There are too many missing links in this particular case relating to the age of the deceased, identity of the deceased because the photographs goes to clearly show that level of decomposition was extreme and victim was unidentifiable from the face. In view of what has been argued before us, this court holds that the conviction recorded by the trial court is not based upon the evidence which could have proved the case of prosecution beyond reasonable doubt and therefore, is set aside”, the DB said.
DB ordered that the appellant be set forth at liberty if not required in any other case.
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