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The Supreme Court bench comprising Justice AK Sikri, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer and Justice MR Shah, has acquitted Digamber Vaishnav and Girdhari Vaishnav who were accused of robbery and murder of five women.
The court after perusing the report has stated that the prosecution made all its case based on the child witness. The court said that it is clear from the testimony of the child witness that she was not an eyewitness to the incident and that her evidence is fraught with inconsistencies.
The bench said that "This Court has consistently held that evidence of a child witness must be evaluated carefully as the child may be swayed by what others tell him and he is easy prey to tutoring. Therefore, the evidence of a child witness must find adequate corroboration before it can be relied upon. It is more a rule of practical wisdom that law."
The court also observed that there was an unexplained delay in reporting the crime. The examination of an expert is crucial especially if reliance is placed on the fingerprint report to suspect the guilt of the accused, the bench said as it noted that the person who took the sample fingerprints was not examined by the prosecution. The court also noted that, even in FIR, there is no averment of any article or money being stolen or lost. Therefore, when the money allegedly recovered is being sought to be relied upon as stolen from the house of the deceased, the same is unreliable when there is nothing on record to support the claim of theft or robbery from the scene of the crime, the court added. On 'last seen together' aspect, the bench said that to constitute the last seen together factor as an incriminating circumstance, there must be close proximity between the time of seeing and recovery of the dead body. Holding that it is difficult to draw an inference that the accused had committed the crime, the bench acquitted them and ordered their release.
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