High Court Acquits 3 Men In 2009 Delhi University Student Murder Case

The Delhi High Court has acquitted three men who were sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court for murdering a Delhi University woman student in 2009.

The high court directed that the men, who were arrested in 2009, be released from jail forthwith.

The three men were arrested in the murder case of 21-year-old Nikita Singh, a Delhi University student who was shot on her forehead in September 2009 and later, her body was found in a polythene bag from a farmhouse in Mundka village here. The incident had taken place while she was returning home from college.

A bench of Justices Mukta Gupta and Anish Dayal said there was no evidence on the basis of which the three men can be proven guilty and set aside the trial court's judgement convicting them in 2020.

"On the basis of the discussion and analysis, this court finds that there is no evidence available on record, on the basis of which the appellants can be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the murder of the deceased and therefore, the conviction and the order on sentence thereon passed by the trial court cannot be sustained and is set aside. The appellants are therefore acquitted and be released from custody forthwith," the bench said.

It allowed the appeals of Yashu, Vineet and Sunil Kumar, represented through senior advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey, challenging their conviction and sentence for the offence of murder under the Indian Penal Code and under the provision of the Arms Act.

The bench said there was no proof regarding the motive and the foundational facts and a mere statement of the victim's father that there was a family dispute with one of the accused regarding property, without any further corroboration, cannot be taken as credible.

"Even if prosecution witness 3 (victim's father) does mention regarding the property dispute, there is nothing in his statement to indicate that the dispute was simmering and had precipitated in any manner in the recent past to trigger murder of his daughter.

"Neither the deceased nor the prosecution witness 3 had received any threat.... Even the trial court observes in the impugned judgement that the exact motive was hazy and unclear," the high court said in its October 31 verdict.

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