Bombay High Court acquits woman accused of killing son, upholds her paramour's sentence

Photo for representational purpose

The Bombay High Court recently acquitted a woman who was earlier awarded a life term for killing her son. The mother, a divorcee with three children, has already spent seven years in jail.

According to the prosecution, the woman had a reason to cause the death of her son as he was not only notorious, but abusive towards his mother and used to harass her, stated a report in India Today.

"The boy was notorious. There were several criminal cases registered against him at Tilak Nagar Police Station. His mother had also registered non-cognisable case against him," the prosecution said.

The prosecution's case was that the woman had an affair with the then Deputy Superintendent of Police of the area she was living in.

In October 2013, when the police officer visited her house, the mother and son had a fight and the son was killed by the policeman with a grinding stone and a knife.

Both the officer and the woman were arrested and a trial had ensued in the lower court.

On behalf of the woman, advocate Aniket Nikam said that the accused was not at home on the day of the incident and no matter how much the mother and child disagreed, she would never think of killing him.

It was argued that the mother and her daughter had left home to stay for the night at a relative's place after she had a fight with her son. Only the police officer and the woman's son were in the house.

The division bench of Justices Sadhana Jadhav and Nitin Borkar refused to acquit the police officer just on the basis of the fact that there were no independent witnesses in the case.

The court said, "We cannot be oblivious of the fact that people are generally insensitive to crimes and have no inclination to be a part of investigation even if the crime has taken place in their presence. There is a tendency to keep away from the court unless it is inevitable. They think that crime is also between two individuals, just like civil disputes. Unfortunately, but this kind of apathy is prevalent in society and therefore, prosecution cases cannot be disbelieved only because there is no independent witness examined, especially in cases that rest upon circumstantial evidence."

About the police officer being convicted for murdering a boy, the court observed, "We are pained to observe that a high-ranking police officer, instead of taking action against notorious son in accordance with law, thought it fit to eliminate him by causing his homicidal death and thereafter, attempted to cause disappearance of evidence. No doubt, the horrendous act is committed by him in his individual capacity. The fact that he was not true to his oath as a police officer to uphold the rule of law cannot be ignored and hence, he does not deserve to be shown any leniency."

However, the court felt that the evidence on record is not sufficient to establish that there was a conspiracy between both the accused (the woman and the police officer) to eliminate the boy.

The chain of circumstantial evidence against the accused woman was not substantiated, and so she was acquitted.