The parents of the victim in Delhi’s Chawla gangrape and murder case on Monday challenged the Supreme Court order that acquitted three death row convicts nearly a month ago.
“…gross injustice will be done to the deceased victim, her parents and the society, if the accused persons/defendants are allowed to walk free in spite of strong circumstances pointing towards their guilt beyond reasonable doubt”. has been duly proved,” said the review petition filed by the victim’s father
The plea further states that in the Supreme Court’s judgment dated November 7, an error is evident on the face of the record as this Court has not appreciated the testimony of important witnesses, which merely point to the guilt of the accused and are inconsistent . with the innocence of the accused persons/respondents.
The review petition also states that the apex court has not appreciated that there is no gap left in the chain of evidence, which only points to the guilt of the accused persons.
The petition further states, “…the Hon’ble Court has erred in observing that the prosecution’s story regarding the circumstances under which the accused were arrested and the car seized, is in serious doubt.”
On November 7, the SC acquitted three men on death row for the gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman in Delhi’s Chhawla area.
Bench headed by former Chief Justice of the apex court India Uday Umesh Lalit said the prosecution failed to provide “prime, cogent, conclusive and clear evidence including related to DNA profiling and call detail records against the accused”.
In 2014, a trial court termed the case as “rarest of rare” and awarded death sentence to all the three accused. This decision was upheld by the Delhi High Court.
Speaking exclusively to CNN News18, the then CJI Uday Umesh Lalit defended the Supreme Court’s decision.
In an exclusive interview with News18, Lalit said that it was a “difficult fact situation”, and accordingly “the culpability of the persons had not been established”.
“This is a difficult fact situation where according to us the guilt of the persons was not established. If the guilt of the persons is not proved, it means that we had no way of awarding them the death penalty. We have no reason to convict them. There was no way and that is why we acquitted them. So, it depends on the fact situation; depends on what is there before you in the form of a case study,” said the former CJI was.
The apex court had earlier said that there were several lacunae in the trial of the 19-year-old rape and brutal murder victim, known as ‘Nirbhaya’ of Uttarakhand. A total of 49 witnesses were examined by the prosecution, out of them 10 crucial witnesses were girls, who apparently saw the victim being abducted in a car, but were not cross-examined by the defense counsel.
The court also observed that in various judgments it had repeatedly observed that the judge should take an active part in the trial and examine the witnesses, but in the present case, the judges of the lower courts acted as ‘passive umpires’.
Thus, the SC observed that the lack of cross-examination of key witnesses and the judge playing the role of a passive umpire, deprived the accused of their rights to a fair trial.
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