The police also filed a chargesheet in court, which contained the statements of over 11 witnesses, all construction workers, who lived near the site.
Like the Tiss rape case, lack of evidence became grounds for acquittal for another man, who was accused of killing his wife by pushing her off from the sixth floor of a building on September 17, 2009. According to the Powai police, Deepak Mandal suspected his wife Tupa of being in an illicit relationship, and pushed her off from an under-construction building where he worked and they lived together.
Deepak was arrested from the spot and was booked under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code. The police also filed a chargesheet in court, which contained the statements of over 11 witnesses, all construction workers, who lived near the site.
However, in court during the trial, the prosecution could not produce any of the 11 witnesses. Only two police officers were produced before the court: one who had registered the case and the other who had filed the chargesheet.
“The prosecution had sought adjournment from March to early October to trace the witnesses, but could not produce even one independent witness”, said defense lawyer Abdul Wahab Khan. Khan added that the police had only taken down the temporary addresses of the construction workers and that they were constantly on the move.
Wahab added, “This is an example of lethargy on part of the investigative machinery.”
According to Wahab, had the defense not admitted the postmortem report, inquest, arrest and spot panchnamas and cloth seizure, the prosecution could not have availed of those documents either.
Mandal suspected his wife to be having an affair with his own brother, and came to Mumbai to work at construction sites. Tupa later came to stay with him.
Mandal had no intentions of reconciliation and allegedly pushed her off the 6th floor of the building. The prosecution’s evidence couldn’t establish this, and the court accepted the defense’s argument that the incident was accidental and thus acquitted Deepak.
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