(INDRAJIT DAS VS STATE OF TRIPURA)
Having Spent 12 Years Behind Bars In Tripura Jail, A Man Is Eventually Given Justice
Indrajit Das becomes a respectable citizen and untags himself from the term “accused” after serving 12 years in Tripura Jail.
According to the police, Das and a young person admitted to them that they had used the deceased Kaushik Sarkar’s bike to travel to the Fatikroy and Kanchanbari areas in the North Tripura district.
According to the police, both of the accused attacked Sarkar while he was riding the motorbike, brandished a large knife at him, threw his helmet, purse, and two knives into the nearby jungle, and then dragged the corpse and the motorcycle to a nearby river before throwing them both into it.
The high court had rejected Das’s appeal while upholding the trial court’s finding of guilt under Sections 201 (causing the destruction of evidence) and 302/34 (murder with a common purpose) of the Indian Penal Code, which resulted in a life sentence and other concurrent sentences.
Indrajit Das submitted a petition to the Supreme Court opposing the Tripura High Court’s decision, which was being heard at the time.
Extrajudicial confessions need to be supported by substantial proof
It was mandated by a panel of Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath that it be proven that all extrajudicial confessions were fully voluntary and truthful.
“Extra-judicial confession is a weak piece of evidence and especially when it has been retracted during the trial. It requires strong evidence to corroborate it and also it must be established that it was completely voluntary and truthful. In view of the discussion made above, we do not find any corroborating evidence to support the extra-judicial confession, rather the evidence led by the prosecution is inconsistent with the same,” the bench said.
The supreme court ruled that motive plays a significant part in cases involving circumstantial evidence.
“Motive may also have a role to play even in a case of direct evidence but it carries much greater importance in a case of circumstantial evidence than in a case of direct evidence. It is an important link in the chain of circumstances,” it said.
The prosecution’s entire case, according to the supreme court, is based on the assumption that Sarkar is deceased.
“The principle of corpus delict (body of the crime) has judgments on both sides stating that conviction can be recorded in the absence of the recovery of the corpus and the other view that no conviction could be recorded in the absence of recovery of the corpus.
Therefore, it would be unfair to maintain the appellant’s conviction. One would have to give the petitioner the benefit of the doubt. In light of this, the appeal is granted and the appellant is cleared of all accusations.
News Mania Desk
