SC acquits man sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering mother in 2010

New Delhi, Oct 7 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted a man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his mother, saying there was a "mystery" surrounding the genesis and origin of the prosecution case.

A bench of Justices K V Viswanathan and K Vinod Chandran set aside a July 2013 order of the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court which upheld his conviction in the 2010 case.

The prosecution alleged that the last rites of the deceased were hurriedly carried out and the body was removed from the pyre after strangulation marks on the neck and an injury on the backside of the skull were found.

The bench observed that the case rests entirely on circumstantial evidence.

"There is a mystery surrounding the genesis and origin of the prosecution case," it said.

It referred to the testimonies of four prosecution witnesses, including some police officers, who all admittedly landed up on the morning of July 22, 2010, at the site of the alleged first cremation attempt.

The bench said on a complete reading of their testimonies, "a lingering doubt still remains in our mind as to why further leads from that time, place and alleged event were not picked up and why no further investigation as to who organised the cremation was carried out".

It said no leads from the crowd gathered there were picked out and nobody was examined in the court.

The bench said the failure to investigate the crowd which had assembled and disbursed at the first alleged attempt at cremating the deceased baffles one's comprehension.

It noted there was no definite medical opinion and in view of the considerable ambiguity in the evidence of the medical expert, death by suicide cannot be said to be completely ruled out.

The bench further noted that the counsel appearing for the appellant contended that during the investigation, police obtained a certificate, dated September 26, 1989, issued by a hospital in Latur which indicated that the deceased was suffering from schizophrenia.

The top court said it was alleged that the appellant murdered his mother for property.

"Having come out with a case of motive, the prosecution has miserably failed to establish the same. It has come on record that the appellant has his father as well as two sisters who are alive," it said.

"It is not as if that the property would, on the death of the deceased, immediately devolve on the appellant in the event of the alleged murder by him going undetected," the bench said.

It said the courts below had fallen into a serious error in convicting the appellant on the basis of the evidence on record.

While allowing the appeal filed by the appellant, the bench acquitted him of all the charges.

The trial court convicted two persons in the case and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The high court upheld the conviction of the appellant while acquitting the other person. PTI ABA DIV DIV