A Panchkula court on Thursday acquitted Himachal Pradesh Congress MlA from Doon constituency, Ram Kumar Chaudhary along with 11 other accused in ‘Jyoti murder case’.
District and Sessions Judge Roopam Singh acquitted the MlA and five others quoting ‘discrepancies’ in evidence produced by police.
Six others were also acquitted from other offences including cheating, forgery and harbouring besides helping MlA, when he was absconding after the incident took place in 2012.
The deceased Jyoti’s father Booti Ram, while talking to media after the judgment, said, “he would challenge the acquittal of Chaudhary and others in the High Court”. He alleged that local police bribed by the Congress MlA and others, helped them in acquittal.
During hearing of the case, the court observed the negative report by CFSl besides un-matched locations of mobile in the case.
Chaudhary had been charged with murder of his former employee 24-year-old Jyoti, who belonged to a ‘Dalit’ family of Hoshiarpur district in Punjab. Jyoti was found dead with head smashed on November 21, 2012 on roadside in Sector 21 at Panchkula.
Earlier, Haryana Police had claimed that Chaudhary had relations with the woman and she became pregnant and her abortion was done at Chaudhary’s behest, but the prosecution had failed to prove it.
Some witnesses in the case had also turned hostile during the trial of the case.
The court had over a year back framed charges of murder against the Congress legislator.
The young woman was initially believed to have been killed in an accident, but later investigations revealed that she was murdered and her mobile phone records led police to Chaudhary.
Chaudhary was elected on a Congress ticket from Solan district’s Doon constituency in the last Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh.