Microbiologist Khaleel Chisti, involved in a 1992 case of murder in Ajmer, was freed on Wednesday by the Supreme Court and allowed to go back to Pakistan.
A Bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi, however, convicted him under Section 324 of the IPC (causing simple injuries). For this offence, the sentence of one year and four months, already served by Dr. Chisti, sufficed.
Writing the judgment, Justice Sathasivam said evidence suggested that the accused were, to some extent, victims of armed aggression by the deceased and his companions. The prosecution’s failure to explain the injuries on the person of the accused assumed greater importance, where the evidence consisted of interested or inimical witnesses or where defence gave a version that competed “…in probability with that of the prosecution one.”
