A sessions court in Mumbai earlier this month acquitted a small-time TV serial producer and his driver from a murder case, as the prosecution could not prove their involvement beyond reasonable doubt. Though there was CCTV footage available in which the accused were seen moving the body, due to non-fulfilment of requirements of the Evidence Act, the court discarded the evidence.
According to defence lawyer Keshav Chavan, there were three accused in the case, including the victim’s 14-year-old daughter but her case was separated because she was a minor at the time of incident. Only the prime accused Krishnanshu Sharma and his driver Ashish Pandey faced the trial.
The prosecution’s case is that Sharma had met the victim Sunita Padam Bahadur Singh (40), a Nepali national who was residing in suburbs for several years and was almost bed-ridden due to sickness, almost a year before the murder.
But the prosecution could not prove motive behind the murder. Its claim was that the accused was booked twice in Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act case in the past and had adopted the victim’s daughter and was allegedly trying to push her into flesh trade. Not only was the accused not taking care of the victim’s daughter but he was also bearing the expenses of victim’s medical expenses.
The prosecution however claimed that the accused and victim had some scuffle on monetary issues because of which Sharma allegedly killed her. There were three stab injuries on her stomach.
The prosecution examined a doctor, an ambulance driver, two watchmen as witnesses and CCTV footage was also relied upon to prove the case against the accused. The doctor was treating the victim and according to the prosecution, the accused had called him to get the victim’s death certificate but the doctor said he could not issue death certificate without examining the body. The accused then chose not to avail of his services.
According to the police, the watchman had seen the accused taking the body away and an ambulance driver was also called to transport the body to crematorium but authorities at the cemetery refused to allow them to dispose of the body without a death certificate. Ultimately, the accused roamed on the city roads for a few hours in the night before leaving her body at Siddharth Nagar in Andheri near Versova.
The driver Pandey’s defence lawyer Chavan argued before the court that none of these witnesses had seen the body and told the court that they could not identify whether it was a body or a dummy. Judge A.S. Mahatme did not accept the CCTV footage because there was no certificate of its authenticity and the conditions of section 65 (B) of Evidence Act were not fulfilled.
Finally, observing that the chain of circumstance to prove allegations beyond reasonable doubts, in absence of eyewitnesses, was not complete, Judge Mahatme acquitted both the accused in the murder case.
