SC acquits ‘rapist’ of minor girl

The Supreme Court has scrapped the verdicts of the Gujarat high court and the Nadiad trial court that awarded death sentence to a man who raped and murdered a minor girl. He was acquitted him of a grave charge for which many in the past had been sent to the gallows.

The judges found two serious infirmities in the two concurring judgments. First, he was not given legal assistance on the ground that the accused Babubhai Udesinh Parmar, a labourer, had committed many other serious offenses and the state can't provide him with a lawyer's assistance.

Secondly, the investigators had secured his confession without giving him an opportunity to ponder over. He was also made to swear an oath that he would be speaking the truth.  The trial court's judgment "gives an impression that it had proceeded on the basis that Parmar is guilty of commission of crime in large number of crimes."

"Recognising the stark reality of the accused being enveloped in a state of fear and panic, anxiety and despair while in police custody, the Indian Evidence Act has excluded the admissibility of a confession made to the police officer," a bench of Justices S B Sinha and Markandey Katju observed while giving liberty to Parmar.

The High Court, taking note of the corroborative pieces of evidence, repeated only the evidences brought on records which proved the commission of offence, the Apex court said. "The circumstances were not such which formed links in the chain and point out only to the guilt to the accused and accused alone," they added.

Parmar was accused of picking up the minor daughter of a co-labourer while she was asleep and raping and murdering her.