2002 Anantnag murder case: HC overturns conviction, life sentence of duo

Srinagar, Jun 6: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has set aside a decision whereby a court in 2014 in Anantnag had sentenced a man and woman to life imprisonment after their conviction in a murder case of 2002. A division bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Sanjay Parihar overturned the conviction and sentence of Shamim Ahmad Parray of Jablipora and Gulshana of Qazigund while allowing their appeals against the trial court decision.

In its decision, the Additional District and Sessions judge Anantnag( trial court)  on August 12, 2014 concluded that the prosecution case was proved beyond doubt and subsequently convicted Parray and Gulshana for offences under erstwhile RPC section of 302/34 (murder/Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) for murder of  Farooq Ahmad Parray of Babapora as he was hit on head with pestle (Chhota) and later throttled.

While quantifying the punishment, on August 16, 2014, the trial court sentenced the duo to imprisonment for life and fine of Rs 5000 each. Against this decision, the convicts approached the high court in appeals.  “...we regret our inability to uphold the judgment of the trial Court. Accordingly, while allowing both these appeals, the judgment of conviction and sentence passed by the trial Court is set aside,” the division bench said in its judgment.

The bench held that scanning of the recorded evidence led by the prosecution would disclose that the place where from wooden pestle (Chhota) was recovered, as per photographs captured during the course of investigation, from a place which could be easily noticed when a person enters the room (kitchen) rather it was not a place to the special knowledge of Shamim.

The Court noted that  the Prosecution witness ( PW-1) --Gull Parray, brother-in-law of Gulshana-- had informed the Police agency about the incident, who swung into action and as per PW-33 (IO), he seized the dead body and also examined the whole of the house including kitchen, corridor etc, but could not find anything incriminating.“So had there been a blood ridden wooden pestle in the kitchen of the deceased (Farooq), then such an item could have been easily noticed by the Investigating Officer, which is not the case herein”, it said.

The bench observed that the existence of the wooden pestle (Chhota) surfaced after the arrest of the accused on April 5 2002. “The recovery is not made from a place where the existence of the pestle is known to the accused only but it was accessible to one and all and the chances of it being a planted recovery cannot be ruled out,” the court said. “At the cost of repetition given the testimony of the medical expert when the weapon was brought to him it had no blood stains then how come the blood stains were later on noticed by forensic examiner this all would lead to the probability that prosecution has resorted to padding of the evidence.”