Man Acquitted By Orissa HC 22 Yrs After Being Jailed For ‘Murder’ Of His Wife

Cuttack: Around 22 years after a trial court sentenced a man to life imprisonment for murdering his wife, the Orissa High Court has acquitted him.

As per the case, Saria, the wife of Jayaram Sahoo of Jhatiapada village under Dharamsala police limits in Jajpur district had died while she was going with her husband on a bicycle. The police had filed a murder case and the court of additional sessions judge, Jajpur convicted Jayaram in the case and sentenced him to life imprisonment on January 7, 2000.

Jayaram had challenged the trial court order in the High Court the same year on the ground that his wife had died after falling from the cycle by accident. After hearing the case on Thursday, a division bench comprising Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice RK Pattanaik set aside the trial court verdict. They said the prosecution had failed to establish a chain of circumstances in the case.

“Neither are the circumstances relied upon by the prosecution of a conclusive nature nor do they exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved. Further, the chain of evidence is not so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused. It does not unerringly point to the guilt of the accused,” TNIE quoted the bench as saying.