HC faults probe, acquits 2 lifers

Court says investigation appears manipulated, suspects politics

Four convicts serving a life sentence in a double murder case have been acquitted by the Hyderabad High Court. It is suspected that evidence in the case was manipulated by the police due to political intervention.

M. Seshulu and his son Venkata Satyanarayana were murdered within the limits of Kalluru police station, in Khammam district, on February 28, 2007.

Konakala Jamalaiah, his wife Mangamma, and their sons Koteswar Rao and Ramakrishna were accused of throwing chilli powder on the victims and attacking them with knives due to an old rivalry, leading to their death. A family court-cumadditional sessions court judge in Khammam sentenced the four to life imprisonment in 2011.

On Monday, a division bench of the High Court comprising Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar and Justice Shameem Akhter, while allowing an appeal filed by the convicts challenging the sentence awarded to them by the lower court, pointed out several lapses in the investigation and glaring inconsistencies in the prosecution's case.

The judges noted that the accused had suffered severe injuries, for which they had been treated at the government hospital at Penuballi, but the police had not mentioned how they had been injured. They also noted that the doctor who had conducted the post-mortem examination had stated that no chilli power had been found on the bodies of the victims. The bench pointed out that the eyewitnesses, on the basis of whose testimony the accused had been convicted, were family members of the deceased, and that there were no independent witnesses to the incident.

The bench noted that there was political rivalry between the accused and deceased. It stated, “Given the strong possibility of political intervention and the glaring inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case, including the registration and dispatch of two FIRs, there is a strong likelihood of manipulation of the case by the police. The version put forth by the prosecution opens the door to doubt.”

The bench stated, “The very foundation of the prosecution’s case is therefore rendered shaky and wholly unworthy of acceptance. This court finds that the prosecution’s case was fraught with inconsistencies and weaknesses, the fundamental defect being its failure to present the origin and genesis of the occurrence in its full and true form.”