The Madras High Court Bench here has set aside the conviction and life sentence imposed on a person for assaulting a woman to death since neither she nor the supposed eye witnesses in the case had reported about the incident to the police until she died in a private hospital two days after the alleged incident.
Allowing a criminal appeal preferred by Eugene Jose of Kanyakumari, a Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran held that it would be difficult to sustain the conviction and life sentence imposed on him by a Mahila Court in Kanyakumari district on March 31 last in the absence of credible evidence.
Though the prosecution case was that the woman, with whom the appellant had illegal intimacy, had died due to injuries sustained during the attack, she had not revealed anything about the assault at the time of getting admitted in the hospital.
Injuries of fall
The victim had told the doctors that she sustained the injuries due to a fall from a motorcycle, the judges pointed out.
Further, three other eye-witnesses to the assault had also not reported about the incident to the police until the woman’s death after two days.
“Unnatural conduct”
“This conduct of the prosecution witnesses is quite unnatural and the same is inconsistent with the theory put forward by the prosecution that they witnessed the occurrence. Thus, we find it difficult to believe them,” the judges said.
According to Colachel police, the appellant had had an illicit intimacy with the victim woman whom he had assaulted with a coconut petiole before pushing her down to the floor and stamping her with his legs on March 24, 2011. The woman had breathed her last at a nearby hospital on March 26, 2011.
