A man, who was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife and five daughters, walked out scot free after three and a half years in jail as the Supreme Court on Friday, by a majority verdict, gave him the benefit of doubt due to the botched-up probe by the Chhattisgarh Police.
The Court acquitted Dhal Singh Dewangan of all charges of murder, after it saw glaring loopholes in police investigation. The most crucial was the failure of police to take finger prints on the murder weapon, an iron knife, found near the accused, who was found in an unconscious state inside the room.
Although his mother, the sole eyewitness of the case, had complained to police accusing his son of the murders, she turned hostile during trial. There were other errors too, such as the clothes worn by the accused sent for forensic examination were a blood-stained lungi while the arrest memo showed a "pant and shirt" worn by the accused at the time of crime in the seized items list.
Taking note of the above glitches, the majority among a three-judge Bench which heard the death appeal acquitted him of all charges. The third judge found it a fit case for conviction but altered the death sentence to life imprisonment.
The six victims — 32-year -old-woman, along with minor daughters aged between 5 and 15 years, were sleeping inside their single-storey house situated in a crowded street in village Mohandipat on the night of the incident on February 19, 2013. The trial court and Chhattisgarh High Court had no doubt to punish Dewangan for causing the multiple murders and sentenced him to death by consecutive orders passed on April 23, 2014 and August 8, 2013.
With the accused getting no lawyer to argue his case in the Supreme Court, amicus lawyer Surya Kant took up his case and pointed out the pitfalls in the evidence linking the accused to the crime. Both Justices Ranjan Gogoi and UU lalit said, "The prosecution did not gather the finger prints either in the house or even on the iron knife which was allegedly used for committing the offence in question. If the finger prints on the knife were to be that of the appellant alone, such factor could certainly have weighed against the appellant."
Even on his unconscious state, the majority verdict found no dispute among the witnesses who deposed. There too, the police failed to interrogate or include as one of the witnesses the personnel at the Primary Health Centre where the accused was first taken after the crime for treating his unconsciousness.