The Madhya Pradesh High Court
Credit: PTI Photo
Jabalpur: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has acquitted two women in a 2008 murder case and asked the trial court to initiate action against the prosecution witnesses for giving false evidence and framing them.
Suraj Bai, one of the two convicted women, had to stay in prison for 14 years before the high court granted her relief last week.
With the help of her relative Bhuri Bai, she was accused of murdering her brother-in-law over strained relations and trying to make it look like a suicide by hanging the body from a tree.
The high court, in its order upholding their appeals against conviction on October 16, directed immediate release of Suraj Bai from prison. Bhuri Bai was already out on bail. A division bench of Justice G S Ahluwalia and Justice Vishal Mishra observed that the trial court treated the case in "a most casual manner".
"The trial court must realize that they are dealing with the life and liberty of a person and no one should be punished without sound principles of law," the high court order said. Blindly accepting the prosecution witnesses' statements "without testing the same on the anvil of their cross-examination" was not the proper way of appreciation of evidence, the judges said. "The trial court should not forget that cross-examination is the only tool in the hand of the accused to dislodge the prosecution case. The admissions made by witnesses in their cross-examination or material contradictions should be given due weightage," the order said.
"In the present case, one lady has remained in jail for 14 years and another was compelled to live in jail along with her minor kids," the high court observed. Further, the HC said, the witnesses deliberately deposed falsely. The police had not investigated the matter properly, allowing the prosecution witnesses to falsely implicate the appellants, the court said. "Therefore, the trial court is directed to initiate proceedings against these witnesses for giving false evidence before a court of law," the HC order said.
There were eleven witnesses in this case. Suraj Bai and Bhuri Bai had appealed against the order of December 23, 2010, passed by the sessions court in Khandwa which sentenced them to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 500 on each of them. Hari aka Bhaggu, Suraj Bai's brother-in-law, was found hanging from a neem tree on September 21, 2008. She and Bhuri bai were charged for his murder.