CBI put in the dock for weak prosecution in Khairlanji case

Even as Dalit organisations decry the Khairlanji killings case judgment, the 131-page judgment clearly mentions that the CBI, by not challenging the acquittal of the accused by the trial court under section 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman) of the IPC, “made it difficult” for the high court “to uphold its appeal” against the lower court’s order, finding the caste atrocity charge untenable.

The Nagpur high court bench comprising justice AP Lavande and justice RC Chavan said the prosecution evidence does not establish that the accused murdered Surekha and her three children because they belonged to the scheduled castes. Which is why, the judges said in their order, they can’t uphold the appeal against the lower court’s acquittal of the accused in the crime.

The CBI had filed an appeal petition before the high court when the capital punishment awarded by the Bhandara trial court to the six convicts in the case came up for confirmation. The CBI filed an appeal against the acquittal by the lower court in the offences under the relevant sections of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and also sought an enhancement of punishment of the two who were awarded life imprisonment, to death. But the CBI did not appeal against the acquittal of the convicts under offences punishable under the aforementioned Section 354, which made its argument, that the convicts intended to insult the victim, weak. The trial court had also said in its judgment that the killings were not an outcome of caste hatred.