While overruling the conviction of the Talwar couple in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case by a lower court, the Allahabad High Court observed that the trial court judge acted like a film director and tried to solve the case like a mathematical puzzle.
Coming down heavily on special CBI judge S. Lal, the High Court said he had "aberrated" and taken "evidence and the circumstances of the case for granted." He tried to "thrust coherence amongst facts inalienably scattered here and there but not giving any coherence to the idea as to what in fact happened," it said.
In November 2013, Judge Lal, though working on circumstantial evidence, came to the "irresistible and impeccable conclusion" that Rajesh and Nupur Talwar murdered their teenage daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj and destroyed evidence in the case.
While acquitting the couple of the crime, Justice A.K. Mishra, one of the two judges in the High Court Division Bench, felt that the trial judge had out of "extra zeal and enthusiasm" and on the basis of "self-perception" adopted "partial and parochial approach in giving vent to his own emotional belief and conviction and thus tried to give concrete shape to his own imagination stripped of just evaluation and facts..."
Justice Mishra said that "it is apparent that the trial judge was unmindful of the basic tenets of law and its applicability to the given facts and circumstances of the case."
He said the trial judge failed to properly appraise facts and evaluate evidence and analyze various circumstances of this case. "The learned trial judge has prejudged things in his own fashion, drawn conclusion by embarking on erroneous analogy conjecturing to the brim on apparent facts telling a different story propelled by vitriolic reasoning."
Strongly worded dismissal of trial court's conclusion
In a strongly worded dismissal of the trial court's conclusion, the High Court said the entire judgment was "on the whole creation of fanciful reasoning with pick and choose presuming facts with indomitable obstinancy..."
The CBI court judge had "surprisingly assumed fictional animation" of the incident by "dint of fallacious analogy and reasoning." The judge had tried to give a live and colourful description of the incident in question and the "whole genesis of the offence was grounded on fact that both the deceased, Hemraj and Aarushi, were seen by Dr. Rajesh Talwar in flagrante," the High Court said.
"Certainly such recalcitrant mindset in interpreting facts vis-à-vis circumstances of the case and evaluation of evidence ought to have been shunned," Justice Mishra said.
The court also listed certain norms that needed to be kept in mind by the trial judge in sensitive cases like the Aarushi-Hemraj murder: parochial and narrow approach to facts and evidence should be avoided and evidence of a particular case has to be read and construed on its face value in line with the statutory requirement; passionate and rash reasoning should not be the guiding factor while scrutinising evidence, facts and circumstances of a criminal case; self-perception and realm should not be reflected on analogy of the facts and evidence on record; the judgment should not be based on self-created postulates, and the imagination should not be given a concrete form and transparency of approach must be reflected in the judgment.
