There is a reason why we file appeals in higher courts of our land, when we believe that the trial court has indeed committed a grave error of law and the evidence on record does not sufficiently point towards the guilt of the accused. Much has been said about the Aarushi-Hemraj Murder case with tremendous criticism of Shyam lal’s plethoric judgement.
What I fail to fathom is how after studying the Additional Sessions Judge’s detailed judgement, people have still managed to point out fallacies in it. The case was not easy; the circumstances did not speak out loud in isolation and the witnesses of both the sides were inadvertently contradictory to each other. Even so, the judge examined every crucial bit of evidence so admitted in court and only and only then did he come to the decision of convicting the accused. I believe this to be a landmark judgement of the Sessions Court, one that must be appreciated and upheld.
The case boiled down to two simple conclusions, the first being that the possibility of an outsider committing the murder is irrational and completely ruled out. Both the accused in their statements u/s 313 of the CrPC had admitted to the fact that their driver had dropped Rajesh Talwar at their home at 9.30 pm and no evidence of any ingress or egress was submitted. Furthermore, no plea of an alibi was taken.
If an outsider had committed the murder, his objective would be to immediately escape and not indulge in the tremendous cleanup action that had taken place. The bed sheets had been changed, Aarushi’s private parts had been cleaned; her toys and bag had been shifted from their positions and, most importantly, although a spatter of blood was found at the back wall of Aarushi’s bed by virtue of her neck being cut, not a single drop of blood was observed on any other object in its surroundings. An outsider would indulge in wiping out any evidence of his existence in the flat, not of the sexual encounter between the two victims. Further, since the middle grill door was locked from inside, would the outsider actually risk spending the night at the Talwar flat till 6 am when the maid Bharti Mandal rang the doorbellIJ Was Nupur Talwar so blind as to not see a stranger loitering in her living room or did he just disappear into thin airIJ
Secondly, the chain of incriminating evidences was so concrete that no rational man would oppose it. The accused had locked Aaarushi’s room on the intervening night and kept the keys with themselves; they were awake the whole night by virtue of the internet date usage records obtained, which also showed that post 2 am a constructive camouflage had been created so as to conceal their true acts; the dimensions of the golf stick exhibit-5 matched the dimensions of the lacerated wounds of both the accused and the same stick had been hidden by Rajesh Talwar for several months in the loft, The DNA test of the blood palm print in Aarushi’s room with Hemraj’s items correctly placed him in Aarushi’s room on the fateful night; that it is unlikely that consciously the victims would surrender to their murderers without any sound of protest or resistance and the same would not be heard by the accused in the adjacent room since sound travels with higher intensity at night; blood stains were observed on the terrace lock handle, door and stairs and that Rajesh Talwar deliberately tried to divert the attention of the police from the terrace where Hemraj’s body was kept and, most importantly, that since it was only those four individuals who were present in the flat in the night. What happened with the two victims rested within the special knowledge of the accused only, by virtue of Section 106 of the Evidence Act, and since they failed to provide any logical justification, the chain of circumstantial evidences so developed could be used against them.
A man may lie, but circumstances can never lie. In human affairs, everything is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. The cherished principles of proof beyond reasonable doubt, which run through the web of our law, should not be stretched morbidly to embrace every hunch, hesitancy and degree of doubt. The excessive solicitude reflected in the attitude that a thousand guilty men may go but one innocent martyr shall not suffer is a false dilemma. Only reasonable doubts belong to the accused. Otherwise, any practical system of justice will break down and lose credibility with the community.
(The writer is a member of the legal Research and Policy Club, National law University Odisha, Cuttack)