New Delhi: In the summer of 2012, Mahaveer Singh learnt that his sister, brother-in-law and their four children had been stabbed to death, their throats slit in a brutal attack. He rushed to Agra’s Turkia village where the family lived and an FIR was filed at Achnera police station, based on his complaint. Gambhir Singh, the brother of Mahaveer’s brother-in-law, Gambhir’s friend, and younger sister Gayatri were named as accused in the FIR.
All three were arrested on 9 May 2012, the day Mahaveer learnt about the death of his six family members, according to the prosecution.
Gambhir’s friend claimed he was a juvenile at the time of the crime and his case was transferred to the Juvenile Board. Gayatri and Gambhir faced trial.
A trial court acquitted Gayatri of murder charges in 2017 as the prosecution could not prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, while Gambhir was sentenced to death on 20 March 2017. Allahabad High Court upheld the order in January 2019, calling it a “rarest of rare” case.
Gambhir, then 30 years old, spent 13 years in Agra’s Central Jail without bail as he couldn’t afford a lawyer due to financial constraints and was represented by government counsels.
On 28 January this year, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction and acquitted him of all charges, citing major loopholes in the prosecution’s case and terming the probe as “lackadaisical”. The top court bench—comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and, and Sandeep Mehta—noted that the prosecution relied on a 2007 murder case to establish a motive in the 2012 murders but failed to provide evidence to back the claim.
The 2007 case involved the murder of Gambhir and his brother Satyaban’s mother, Asha.
“We find that the present one is a case involving utter lackadaisical approach on the part of the investigating agency as well as the prosecution,” the top court noted.
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The land never sold
Uttar Pradesh Police’s case hinged on a dispute over a one-bigha piece of land (one bigha is 0.62 acre), which investigators cited as the motive for the murder. Police said the land dispute started after Gambhir and Satyaban killed their mother in 2007.
“The police said that they killed their mother as she was planning to get married to someone else. They wanted the property so they killed her,” said Advocate on Record Rakesh Uttarchandra Upadhyay, representing Gambhir in the Supreme Court.
While acquitting the now 43-year-old, the Supreme Court observed that Uttar Pradesh Police had provided “no plausible evidence” to back its claim regarding the motive.
The court noted that beyond Mahaveer Singh’s “bald aspersion,” there was no credible material linking the accused to the particulars of their mother’s murder case.
According to police, Gambhir killed his brother and his entire family over the land which they claimed he sold to Satyaban’s wife Puspha to fund his legal expenses for bail in the 2007 murder case.
The prosecution argued that this transaction strained the relationship between the brothers, as Gambhir repeatedly demanded the land back.
However, the apex court pointed out a crucial gap in the prosecution’s case: it never produced documentary evidence regarding the sale of the land owned by Gambhir.
“The prosecution failed to lead even an iota of evidence to show that the appellant-accused was deprived of the plot of land owned by him so as to connect such a transaction with the theory of motive,” the top court observed.
Even though the Allahabad High Court order mentioned the 2007 murder case, it didn’t question the lack of evidence backing up this claim. It also didn’t mention what happened to the mother’s murder case—crucial to establish the motive in the 2012 murders.
“Murder of mother of accused-appellant and deceased Satyabhan has not been disputed nor statement regarding transfer of immovable property in the name of wife of deceased Satyabhan by accused-appellant was specifically challenged in cross-examination,” read the Allahabad High Court order, a copy of which was seen by ThePrint.
This order also noted that a fact may be proved either by oral or documentary evidence.
However, multiple counsels, who have either represented the state or the petitioner in the 2012 case, told ThePrint that the top court was informed orally that Gambhir had been acquitted in his mother’s murder case but no documentary evidence was submitted.
“The court was informed orally that he has been acquitted and that the prosecution hasn’t appealed against it,” advocate Upadhyay said. The counsel added that no records were placed before the Supreme Court as well as subordinate courts on details of the mother’s murder case, including when Gambhir was acquitted. “The prosecution relied on a case about which no evidence was filed before the courts,” Advocate Upadhyay said. A counsel for the state added that “this wasn’t even brought in the lower courts”.
Evidence Act not followed, hearsay testimonies
The top court pointed out other flaws in the investigation.
Key prosecution witness Mahaveer Singh stated that Gambhir and his friend were staying at the victims’ house on the night of the murder. When he inquired, he found that Gambhir, his friend and Gayatri were seen leaving Turkia village in a bewildered condition. The prosecution claimed that Gambhir and his friend’s clothes were blood-stained.
The Supreme Court dismissed his statement as “conjectural and hearsay,” noting that Singh could not recall who told him about their presence at the crime scene.
Another witness, Bahadur Singh, testified about the recovery of the alleged murder weapons—a kulhari (axe) and a katari (knife)—and blood-stained clothes from the scene of the crime. However, the court deemed his testimony as “hearsay” in nature.
Moreover, the judges also highlighted that Bahadur Singh, who is Mahaveer’s uncle, did not mention the alleged motive at any point in his testimony. The court dismissed another prosecution witness’s statement as fabricated “for lending credence to its flimsy case, as against the appellant-accused and to link him with the crime by hook or by crook”.
The most important witness, Tasleem Ahmed Rizvi, who was the then station house officer (SHO) of Achnera and the first investigating office in the case, also came under scrutiny.
The top court, however, noted several discrepancies in his testimony which discredited Uttar Pradesh Police’s case.
This includes his failure to distinctly identify the accused individuals who led police to the recovery of the alleged murder weapons and the absence of any indication in his testimony that he had obtained the signatures of the accused on the recovery memos.
Moreover, the investigating officer also didn’t state that he signed and attested the memorandums documenting the recoveries.
“We do not find anything therein to suggest that the officer conducted any investigation whatsoever regarding the theory of motive. The evidence of the Investigating Officer is totally silent on this vital aspect of the case,” the Supreme Court noted.
The Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) representing Gambhir in the high court had also argued that he wasn’t provided with the incriminating material that the trial court relied upon or the impugned order, which was prejudicial to the accused.
The counsel also pointed out contradictions in witness statements on the point of arrest and recovery of evidence. It was “unbelievable as well as improbable” that the accused would still be wearing the same blood-soaked clothes a day after the murder, at the railway station from where the police recorded their arrest.
Further, the order also notes that not a single person living adjacent to the crime scene was examined by the investigating officer to establish the presence of the accused at the location. Moreover, the Supreme Court also observed that the forensic report did not indicate the grouping of the blood found on the weapons. The Amicus in the HC had also contended that the blood found on the kulhari didn’t match the blood group of the victims.
The court also questioned how the trial was conducted by the public prosecutor as well as the trial court. It said that key procedures under the Indian Evidence Act (now Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam) were not followed while recording statements of important prosecution witnesses.
Moreover, the investigating officer failed to keep the recovered evidence safe until they reached the forensic laboratory.
Further, the top court bench also said the high court “failed to advert to these inherent improbabilities and infirmities in the prosecution case”.
“In the result, we are of the view that the prosecution has failed to prove even one of the three so-called incriminating circumstances i.e., ‘motive’, ‘last seen’ and ‘recoveries’ in its quest to bring home the guilt of the appellant-accused,” the Supreme Court bench noted.
ThePrint reached Agra Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Preetinder Singh for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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