09 September 2021 :

The Patna High Court on 23 July 2021 acquitted a man, who was sentenced to death for allegedly raping and killing a 16-year-old girl under Barhara police station in Bhojpur district of Bihar.
The court also acquitted two others, who were awarded life imprisonment in the same case. The final hearing on their appeal took place on 23 July.
The division bench of justices Ashwani Kumar Singh and Arvind Srivastava observed that police had not bothered to visit the crime spot and submitted that the girl’s body had been recovered on the confessional statement of death sentence convict Balwant Singh. The body could have been recovered much earlier, it said.
Additional public prosecutor (HC) Abhimanyu Sharma said the bench set aside the Pocso court order awarding capital punishment to Balwant in 2019.
“It also set aside the life imprisonment order to the two other convicts, Chotu Singh and Anand Pandey,” he said.
The bench observed that the prosecution miserably failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt against the appellants. The girl’s father had lodged an FIR against Balwant, Chotu and another unknown person on 5 February 2018, alleging that his daughter had been gang-raped and killed by the trio. Police first filed chargesheet against Balwant on 3 May 2018, and a supplementary chargesheet against the other two on 20 September 2018.
The HC also found contradictions in the statements of the victim’s father, the investigating officer and the witnesses. It observed that the kidnapping took place on 31 January and body was recovered on 5 February after which an FIR was lodged. But there was no reasonable explanation about the delay.