A father-son duo was recently exonerated in a 1995 murder case that occurred in Uttarakhand’s Manglaur by the Supreme Court, which overturned a judgement of the Uttarakhand High Court.
Mohd Muslim and Shamshad were exonerated last week by a bench of justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal, who also overturned the rulings of the Roorkee court and Uttarakhand High Court.
The Uttarakhand High Court ruling, dated September 10, 2010, which upheld the Roorkee Sessions Court order, dated April 25, 1998, was being challenged in a father-son petition before the court.
“In view of the above, the judgement and orders of the Courts below that is Additional Sessions Judge, Roorkee dated April 25, 1998, and High Court of Uttarakhand dated September 10, 2010, are accordingly set aside and the accused-appellant no. 1 is acquitted by giving the benefit of the doubt,” the supreme court stated.
The father and son were found guilty of murder in a 1995 case by Roorkee Court, and they were given life sentences. The Uttrakhand High Court has affirmed the aforementioned conviction. The Supreme Court remarked that the prosecution had failed to establish the culpability of those accused of attacking and killing Altaf Hussain.
We are forced to question the presence of the son and nephew of the deceased Altaf Hussain at the scene due to the totality of the facts and circumstances, particularly their strange behavior and conduct, the ante-timing of the FIR, and the failure to produce the ‘loi’ (blanket) and the cycle allegedly belonging to the accused-appellants and left at the scene of the incident. As a result, the top court stated, “We are compelled to confer the benefit of the doubt to both the accused-appellants given the absence of any reliable eye witness to the occurrence and the fact that the presence of the accused-appellants at the scene of the incident is also not clearly established.
Aside from the two parties, the court also pointed out that there was no other impartial witness to the occurrence.
On August 4, 1995, the event occurred under the purview of Police Station Mangalore. In the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Roorkee, the Police filed a charge sheet against Mohd Muslim and Shamshad under Section 302 IPC (murder).
Written By- Aditya Singh, College Name- Army Law College, Pune, Semester- 2nd Semester Student an Intern under Legal Vidhya
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