This is exactly what happened in the Jessica Lall case.
New Delhi: It was a case of the prosecution handing over evidence to the defence on a platter. Well, almost.
This is exactly what happened in the Jessica Lall case. Instructions to the police from the specially-appointed public prosecutor on how to prepare water-tight statements inadvertently became a part of the case diary and ended up in the court.
The defence lapped up these sheets, which clearly showed that statements of the witnesses were prepared after the Special Public Prosecutor was appointed on May 18, 1999. But the statements were shown to have been recorded earlier. This helped the defence question the credibility of the statements.
The document is written in the hand of SI Sunil Kumar and gives directions on how the statements of the witnesses should be written.
But what really helped Manu Sharma was the fact that the police completely ignored Shayan Munshi's initial statement about two bullets being fired by two people.
Shayan Munshi said that two people had fired. The inquest report also mentions that another person had shot. But this was never investigated.
If the two-men theory had been followed up, the two-gun theory that eventually cost the case may have been corroborated, perhaps leading to a different verdict.
The lapses on the part of the Delhi Police extend far beyond this. There is evidence that the police did recover a pistol from Manu Sharma's Samalkha farmhouse. But this recovery was never put on record.
The security guard at the farmhouse had stated on oath that the SHO had raided and taken away a photograph, the arms license, a pistol and some cassettes. When asked about this in court, the police remained silent.
What cost the Delhi Police the Jessica Lall case? Was it lack of integrity in the case chain, shoddy investigation or just plain incompetence? The answers to these questions will become clear on April 19 when the Delhi Police submit their reply to the High Court on the lapses in the investigation.
Comments
0 comment