The CBI said it had enough circumstantial evidence against Santosh Singh accused of raping and killing Priyadarshani Mattoo.
NEW DELHI; Maintaining that the DNA sample in the sensational Priyadarshini Mattoo murder case was not tampered with, CBI on Thursday asserted before the Delhi High Court that Santosh Kumar Singh, the main accused, deserved death sentence for the offence of rape and murder as there was enough circumstantial evidence against him.
"On the basis of all circumstantial evidence, instead of holding the accused guilty for the offence, the trial court gave him benefit of doubt which is unsustainable," Additional Solicitor General Amrender Sharan told a Bench comprising Justice R S Sodhi and Justice P K Bhasin.
The main arguments on the charge have been concluded and the prosecution will argue on the punishment and whether it is a "rarest or rare" case deserving capital punishment.
While the CBI was passionately arguing that the accused deserved capital punishment, Singh, in advocate's uniform, watched the third day of the proceedings quietly seated in the second row.
He was seen jotting down the arguments put forward by the CBI against his acquittal by the trial court.
Maintaining that the thrust of his arguments will be to attract capital punishment for the accused, Sharan said "in the cases like rape and murder, the High Court has given death sentence to the accused".
"Therefore, I will argue for the stringent sentence for the accused later," he said completing his arguments on the charges of rape and murder.
Defending the investigation carried out by the CBI, the ASG, who had a tough time explaining that the DNA report was not tampered with, said despite the fact that the CFSL report confirmed that the semen sample obtained from undergarments of the victim matched with that of the accused, the trial court came to an "erroneous conclusion".
The agency was showered with several queries by the court on the issue of DNA report.
"Why the blood sample of the accused, taken on Jan 28, 1996, was sent for the test after four days. Even the trial court has criticised about the lackadaisical attitude of the police personnel who were present there," the Bench observed.
The ASG said the gap was there because the case was transferred to the CBI from the Delhi Police and in between the sample was in possession of the doctor who had collected it at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
He said the trial court did not accepted the DNA report as it only bore the signature of a superior officer of CFSL and not of the person who conducted the test.
"The DNA test was conducted by Dr G B Rao under the supervision of Dr Lalji Singh and the report which was submitted to investigating agency had only the signature of Dr Singh," he said.
CBI said both Rao and Singh were made prosecution witnesses but the trial court only accepted the testimony of former.
The court had termed Singh as an "incompetent witness" he only had supervised the test and was not actually involved in it.
The court fixed September 12 for next date of hearing.
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