Trial court’s acquittal ‘self-contradictory’

NEW DELHI: Manu Sharma had been earlier acquitted by a trial court. In its 61-page judgment on Monday, the Bench comprising RS Sodhi and PK Bhasin labelled the acquittal judgment "perverse", "immature" and "self-contradictory".

Picking holes in the acquittal judgment by Justice SL Bhayana and its "wrong" appreciation of justice, the Bench said: "With every respect to the learned Judge, we may point out that this manner of testing the credibility to the witness (Deepak Bhojwani) is hardly a rule of appreciation of evidence." 

Bhayana, who was then judge of the additional sessions court, has since been elevated to the high court, on par with Justices Sodhi and Bhasin. He had discredited Bhojwani's testimony on the ground that it was by an 'interested' witness.  But the high court rejected Bhayana's finding: "It is not necessary that every witness must see the other and only then can they be relied on. Each witness deposes to what he saw or what he did."

The court added, "This suggests a 'hasty approach' towards securing a particular end, the acquittal."

The high court also questioned the acquittal judgment's rejection of Malini Ramani's testimony. Malini had said she had seen Sharma and four others at the Tamarind Court. They had asked for whisky and misbehaved with her.

We find it quite strange, the Bench said, that at one stage the trial court judge held that four accused were present inside the Tamarind Café on the basis of testimony that he had doubted.

The Bench also said that the trial court has wrongly appreciated Bina Ramani's statement that did not at any point say that she had not seen Manu firing at Jessica.