Bhubaneswar: The Orissa High Court has acquitted a murder convict, who spent 14 years in jail on charges of killing a 20-year-old girl in 2005, for lack of evidence.
Madan Kanhar was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by the court of Sessions Judge, Phulbani, on January 2, 2008. He filed a jail criminal appeal in the high court against the trial court judgment on April 7, 2008, and was granted bail on April 19, 2019, after spending 14 years in jail.
“In the instant case, the discrepancies in the eyewitness testimony, the inconsistencies in the discovery of evidence, and the inconclusive forensic findings collectively fail to establish an unbroken chain of circumstances leading solely to the appellant’s guilt,” the division bench of Justices SK Sahoo and Chittaranjan Dash said in its March 7 order.
The court also questioned the testimony of the eyewitness. “While the postmortem report confirms the homicidal nature of death, it does not conclusively link the appellant to the crime. Therefore, in the absence of unimpeachable and irrefutable evidence, the benefit of doubt must necessarily go to the appellant, as no conviction can be sustained on mere suspicion or weak circumstantial evidence,” the bench observed.
Kanhar of Titrapanga village was accused of killing a girl of the same village with an axe when he was 25 years old. He was arrested on April 13, 2005. The trial was undertaken based on the case registered at the Khajuripada police station.
