Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court has acquitted three men sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and other offences in a case linked to the Feb 2016 Jat reservation agitation in Haryana, holding that the prosecution failed to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.A division bench of Justice Rajesh Bhardwaj and Justice Puja Chopra on Oct 15 set aside the Jan 2019 conviction of Daljeet alias Jaljeet, Pawan alias Pona and Surender alias Jhanda by an additional sessions judge in Hisar.The case arose from an alleged attack on a dhani near Sisai village on Feb 22, 2016, during which a mob allegedly opened fire, killing Mintu and injuring Krishan and Harphul Singh. The accused were also alleged to have looted cash and jewellery and set the property on fire.According to the prosecution, Mintu and Krishan had gone to the dhani of Shanti, the complainant’s aunt, to enquire about their family members. A mob of 70-75 people allegedly arrived around 2pm and opened fire. While Krishan was taken to hospital, Mintu’s body was found in a wheat field the following morning.The accused challenged their conviction, arguing that the prosecution’s case rested on eyewitness accounts and weapon recoveries, but the injured witnesses had not supported the prosecution during the trial.The high court noted that Krishan and Harphul Singh failed to identify the appellants as the assailants. Complainant Ram Avtar also testified that the accused present in court had neither attacked the house nor caused firearm injuries to Mintu and Krishan. The bench noted that no test identification parade had been conducted despite the alleged involvement of a large mob.The court also questioned the prosecution’s reliance on a forensic report matching a bullet recovered from Mintu’s body with a weapon allegedly used by Daljeet. The weapon had been recovered from Balwant alias Ballu in another FIR and introduced into the present case more than two years after the incident.The bench found no plausible reason for transferring the weapon from the other case after such a delay. “Once the eye-witnesses have not supported the case of the prosecution, the prosecution is left with the evidences which are in the nature of the disclosure statements and the alleged recoveries made on the basis of the same,” the court observed.It added that a conviction could not rest solely on recoveries following disclosure statements made in police custody, noting that the statements themselves were inadmissible as evidence. “On re-appreciation of the evidence, this court finds that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt and thus, the appellants deserve the benefit of doubt,” the bench said.
