The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has overturned the life imprisonment sentence of a man who spent 11 years behind bars, citing “serious lapses” in the police investigation and a failure by the prosecution to provide scientific evidence linking him to the alleged crime.
A bench comprising Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Brij Raj Singh allowed the appeal filed by the accused, Nirmal Kumar, setting aside a 2018 trial court judgment. The High Court emphasized that criminal convictions must be based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt rather than “suspicion or assumptions.”
The legal battle stems from an incident in 2010 in the Ayodhya district involving a 14-year-old mentally challenged girl. According to the FIR lodged by the girl’s father, the minor was allegedly raped and died three days later.
The appellant, Nirmal Kumar, was subsequently charged with both rape and murder. In 2018, a trial court convicted Kumar for rape, sentencing him to life imprisonment. However, the trial court acquitted him of the murder charge at that time, noting a lack of clarity regarding the victim’s exact cause of death. Kumar remained in custody throughout the trial and subsequent appeal process, totaling 11 years of incarceration.
Upon re-examining the evidence, the High Court identified significant gaps in the prosecution’s narrative. While forensic reports confirmed the presence of human semen, the bench pointed out a critical failure in the investigative process: no DNA testing or other scientific verification was conducted to link the samples to the accused.
The bench observed:
“Conviction in criminal cases must be based on proof beyond reasonable doubt and not on suspicion or assumptions.”
The court termed the absence of DNA profiling a “serious flaw” in the investigation, noting that without such conclusive evidence, the prosecution had failed to establish the appellant’s guilt with the certainty required by law.
Holding that the prosecution failed to meet the evidentiary burden, the High Court set aside the trial court’s 2018 conviction. The bench ordered the immediate release of Nirmal Kumar, concluding that the original judgment could not be sustained given the investigative deficiencies.
