New Delhi, February 18 A Delhi court has acquitted a man accused of murdering an 18-year-old flower vendor in Paschim Vihar in 2017, giving him the benefit of the doubt and holding that the prosecution failed to establish the chain of circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
Additional Sessions Judge Pooja Talwar acquitted Rahul Kumar, who was booked under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The victim, Pushpender, was found dead in a park near Jawala Heri Chowk in the early hours of February 8, nine years ago.
"The prosecution has not been able to prove that all the facts so established are consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused. The prosecution has not been able to establish a chain of evidence so complete as to establish that it was only the accused and nobody else who could have murdered the victim," said the court in its judgment dated February 9.
According to the prosecution, Pushpender, who worked at a flower shop, had left for Multan Nagar on the evening of February 7 after informing his sister that he had collected Rs 30,000 from his clients and would return soon.
When he did not reach home, and his phone went off, his family began searching for him.
They later found his motorcycle near a park in Paschim Vihar, and his body inside with wounds to the head and his face crushed.
During the investigation, police relied on call detail records of the deceased to track down his mobile phone and allegedly found his phone in Kumar's possession in Siraspur, Rohini.
The prosecution claimed that the accused had confessed to the crime and led the police to the recovery of certain articles, including a SIM card and shoes.
However, the court noted shortcomings in the prosecution's case, including hostile witnesses and gaps in the circumstantial evidence. Key witnesses, including relatives and co-workers, did not fully support the prosecution's version during the trial, it pronounced.
"There are discrepancies not only with respect to the place of arrest and recovery of mobile phones but also with respect to the same being affected in the presence of a number of persons," said the court.
The court doubted the alleged recovery of the evidence, citing a possibility of tutoring of witnesses, as one witness deposed in his initial testimony that he did not remember the place of recovery of the SIM card, but later in the witness box, he remembered the exact place of recovery.
Considering that Kumar was connected to the crime only through the alleged recovery of the mobile phone, the court said, "Once the prosecution failed to prove the recovery of the mobile phone which is the basis of connecting the accused with the offence beyond reasonable doubt, the benefit of same would accrue in favour of the accused."
Kumar in court claimed he was framed at the instance of one of the prosecution witnesses, Brahmjeet. He also accused Brahmjeet of killing Pushpender for having an affair with his niece.
The court also took note of the cordial relations between Kumar and Pushpender, claimed by all the witnesses.
The post-mortem report stated that the cause of death was "due to combined effect of asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation and cranio-cerebral damage subsequent to blunt force impact on the head," confirming the cause of death to be homicidal.
