Rape-murder: SC acquits man sent to gallows by trial court

NEW DELHI: Grazing goats on a sizzling summer day of 2009, a thirsty 10-year-old Dalit girl Shanti (name changed) rushed to a tubewell to quench her thirst. That was the last anyone saw her alive. Later, a tubewell operator was accused of raping & murdering her. Her father found her body from a haystack and lodged a police complaint on May 27, 2009.

The trial court convicted the accused for rape and murder in Dec 2012 and awarded death sentence. Allahabad HC scrutinised evidence afresh and in 2022, upheld the conviction but reduced the punishment to imprisonment for rest of his life. On appeal, an SC bench of Justices A S Oka, Ahsanuddin Amanullah and A G Masih on Dec 2, 2024, acquitted the man, saying he was not given proper legal assistance during trial, which prejudiced his right to defence.


The goat-herder parents of the 10-year-old would not understand the intricacies of the legal procedure. Conviction of the accused was the only solace for them thinking justice was done to their unfortunate daughter. For them, the SC verdict would mean their daughter's murderer goes unpunished.

If SC could detect glaring lacunae in conviction of the man, are trial court and HC judges not well-trained to weigh evidence or ill-trained to follow the procedures during a trial? What about the accused? If he had not committed the crime, who will compensate him for the 13 years he spent in jail? Should police be penalised for its faulty probe that led to acquittal in a heinous offence of a minor girl's rape & murder?

In two years, different benches led by Justice Oka have acquitted a dozen people, who were concurrently convicted and sentenced to life or death by trial courts and HCs, on various grounds - technical to lack of evidence - and reached the conclusion that prosecution failed to prove the case 'beyond reasonable doubt'.