Court lets off man in matricide case

A Delhi court has acquitted a man of the charge of murdering his widowed mother as the two eyewitnesses, the deceased’s grandson and maternal grandson, died before recording their evidence.

The mother had refused to give him money to buy liquor.

“They had seen the alleged act of culpable homicide with their own eyes. Unfortunately for the prosecution, they both died before their evidence could be recorded,” the court said while acquitting accused Fateh Singh.

The police had charge-sheeted the accused for the murder offence but the court framed the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (304) of the IPC.

Though the accused had confessed to the crime before the police but the court rejected it as it is inadmissible under the Evidence Act.

The prosecution tried to prove the case on the basis of the presence of stains of the deceased’s blood on the axe with which the accused had struck his mother and the clothes he was wearing at the time of committing the crime.

But at the same time the prosecution and the investigating officer of the case admitted that no fingerprints were available on the axe.

The court admitted argument by the counsel for the accused that some other person had killed the mother of the accused and her blood rubbed off on his clothes while checking out whether she was alive or not. “Such explanation cannot be ruled out completely and cannot be termed illogical,” the Judge said.

“In view of my foregoing discussion, I grant benefit of doubt to the accused and acquit him of the charge under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code,” Additional Sessions Judge Manoj Jain said.