Govt. moves HC for retrial in Walayar case

‘There was lack of coordination between investigation agency and prosecutor’

The State government on Wednesday approached the Kerala High Court seeking to set aside the verdict of the Palakkad Special Court acquitting all the four accused in the case relating to the death of two sisters at Walayar.

The government also pleaded that in the alternative, a further investigation and retrial of the case be ordered. The prosecution case is that the two minor girls had committed suicide because of the repeated sexual harassment by the accused.

In an appeal filed against the lower court verdict, the State government pointed out that the special court’s judgment suffered from illegality and manifest errors. The lower court ought to have found that the oral testimony of the witnesses was the substantial evidence in the case.

Even as the appeal pointed out flaws in the judgment, it admitted that there was lack of coordination between the investigation agency and the prosecutor. The government said the conduct of the case by the Special Pub;ic Prosecutor was "totally blameworthy."

She did not care to use the statements of the witnesses recorded by the magistrate for corroboration of the evidence of supporting witnesses and contradicted the hospital witnesses’ statements. Her act had caused “miscarriage of justice and affected the entire trial.”

In fact, the Special Public Prosecutor in the case had now been removed from the post for dereliction of duty.

The government said that even if the prosecutor failed to place on record the incriminating pieces of evidence and circumstances against the accused already produced by the investigation agency, the court should correct the prosecutor.

The government pointed out that the lower court went wrong in accepting the flimsy grounds raised by the defence in arriving at a conclusion that the prosecution failed to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.

The government submitted in the appeal that the prosecution could establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt through the clinching evidence of prosecution witnesses and also was able to prove several incriminating circumstances against the accused.

However, the lower court was not inclined to accept these evidences. It wrongly observed that the prosecution evidence was insufficient to complete the chain of circumstances pointing to the guilty of the accused.

The lapses on the part of the investigation agency or the prosecution agency could not be a sole ground for acquitting the accused in a criminal case involving serious offences, the government pointed out.