WORD OF MOUTH INVESTIGATION NOT DONE: HC

The Hyderabad High Court recently made some scathing remarks about investigation in a murder case while acquitting two people a lower court had sentenced to life.

In one of its last judgements before division into separate High Courts for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the court said crimes should not be investigated on the basis of hypothesis and investigators should not be casual vis-a-vis collection of evidence, their storage and transportation.

A division bench comprising Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice M. Satyanarayana Murthy was dealing with individual appeals by two persons convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012 by a fast track court in Rangareddy district for a murder that took place in

2007. The convicts had appealed in the higher court to set aside the conviction, saying they were falsely framed and are innocent.

The bench, after pursuing facts and evidences, acquitted both convicts on the ground that the statements of the investigating officer were contradictory vis-a-vis collection of evidence and its transportation to the forensic science laboratory.

The court told the investigating officers and prosecution to ensure no such contradictions arise, as it gives benefit of doubt to convicts. It also stressed on the need to collect a chain of evidence, so that it is clear that the accused committed the act.

The court of the 10th additional district and sessions judge, Rangareddy district, had convicted Kandadi Raveena and her alleged paramour Thurugopu Krishna, for killing Raveena’s husband Kandadi Jagan Mohan Reddy at Uppal in

2007. Krishna was charged with having instigated Raveena to kill her husband and she with having administered poison to him.

Challenging the lower court’s judgment, the earlier convicts filed criminal appeals individually before the High Court in

2012. The High Court bench dealt with both the appeals together. It observed that the prosecution had failed to establish essential factors in the case by poisoning. It referred to the Supreme Court’s findings in a case of death by poisoning.