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Jessica Lal murder : “Nobody found guilty” |
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The nation was shocked last week when a trial court in New Delhi acquitted all accused in the sensational Jessica Lal murder case in which the young model was shot dead at point-blank range at Mehrauli, in the national capital, on April 30, 1999. Two of the accused in the case were sons of prominent politicians - Siddarth Vashisht alias Manu Sharma, son of Haryana’s Excise Minister, Vinod Sharma, and Vishal Yadav, son of former Member of Parliament, D.P. Yadav.
The court also acquitted seven other accused in the case. Manu Sharma was the prime accused charged with murder. Talking to reporters after pronouncing the judgement, Additional Sessions Judge S.L. Bhayana said : “The court has acquitted them because the Delhi police failed to sustain the grounds on which they had built up their case.”
“The police failed to recover the weapon which was used to fire at Jessica Lal as well as prove their theory that the two cartridges, emptied shells of which were recovered from the spot, were fired from one weapon,” the judge added.
The Delhi police allegation against Manu Sharma was that he had fired at the ramp model when she refused to serve liquor to him on the plea that the bar had closed for the day. But the police failed to recover the weapon that, according to them, Manu Sharma had used to fire at her.
In the charge sheet, the police had claimed that the two cartridges were fired from the same weapon, but forensic examination revealed that the cartridges were fired from two different weapons. Bhayana said the other ground on which the court acquitted the accused was that all the three eyewitnesses listed by the police in the charge sheet - Shiv Lal Yadav, an electrician at the Tamarind Court, film actor Shyan Munshi and Karan Rajput, one of the visitors at the restaurant that day - turned hostile during the trial.
The fourth factor that led to the acquittal of the accused was the police failure to establish a complete chain of the circumstances leading to the incident.
Delhi Police asked to submit report
Delhi High Court took suo motu notice of the public outcry over acquittal of all the accused in the Jessica Lal murder case, and on Feb. 24, directed the Police to submit to the Court all the investigation details as well as the reasons which caused the fall of the case in the trial court.
Taking note of news reports blaming shoddy investigation for the failure of the prosecution case, a Division Bench of the High Court comprising Justices Vijender Jain and Rekha Sharma directed Delhi’s Police Commissioner to respond to the Court’s queries within four weeks.
Earlier, the Bench directed the High Court Registry to club clippings of newspaper reports on the acquittal of the nine accused in the case and list the matter for the court as public interest litigation. The acquittal had led to a widespread hue and cry with many organizations and NGOs demanding a retrial of the case and action against officers responsible for bungling the case.
Observers say that Jessica Lal case is only one of the large number of cases where the police are less than effective in investigating cases involving the high and mighty.
The onus of providing security to the evidence and key witnesses rests with the police. Delhi Police appear to have failed in discharging this responsibility. Observers say that the indications are that Delhi Police itself killed the case right from the beginning. There are reports that its top officers including the then Police Commissioner Ajai Raj Sharma, were aware of how their own men had connived with the accused and tampered with the evidence. But no one took action.
Police Commissioner K.K. Paul, the then Joint Commissioner, Crime Branch, had conducted an independent secret inquiry into allegations of evidence tampering. He submitted his report to Sharma in two parts : interim report on June 7, 2001 and the final report on Nov. 11, that year.
In his report, Paul said, “There has obviously been a conspiracy between the accused and certain officials, which is to be investigated. Paul had written that if a separate case was not to be registered, the investigation under section 173(8) Cr.P.C. could be carried out under the direct supervision of the joint commissioner, southern range.
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