He was in jail for 11 years for a murder he never committed, now the Supreme Court has acquitted him

New Delhi: A man from a poor family in Chhattisgarh was convicted of a crime he never committed. He was sent to jail for 11 years. The man was convicted of murder by courts in the country itself, first by the trial court and then by the High Court. When the case reached the Supreme Court, the whole picture became clear. The Supreme Court proved him innocent and hence he got bail. Let us understand how this man from Chhattisgarh got such a big punishment without committing any crime. This case is an example of the slow pace of the criminal justice system in the country. The Bilaspur Bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court took five years to uphold the trial court's decision and the Supreme Court took six years to acquit him of murder charges, as it found that the prosecution failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

What is the matter and how did it reach the Supreme Court?
Ratanu Yadav was arrested on March 2, 2013, for forcibly drowning his stepmother in Kharora village in Raipur. The trial court convicted him through a fast-track trial on July 9, 2013, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The High Court upheld the trial court's verdict on April 7, 2018. No lawyer appeared for him. The Supreme Court appointed advocate Sridhar Y Chitale as amicus curiae based on the examination of evidence placed on record by the prosecution. Chitale said the post-mortem report indicated that the death was due to drowning, but the prosecution did not bear the burden of proving that it was murder.

What did the Supreme Court say in its decision?
The amicus curiae also pointed out that the witness turned hostile during the trial, thereby destroying the credibility of the prosecution's story that the man forcibly drowned his stepmother. A bench of Justices S Oka and Rajesh Bindal said that the general rule of human conduct is that if a person wishes to confess to a crime committed by him, he will do so before a person in whom he has full confidence. It is not the case of the prosecution that the appellant (Yadav) had a close acquaintance with this witness for a certain period of time before the incident. Moreover, the statement of the witness in the examination-in-chief and cross-examination is completely different. Therefore, in our view, the testimony of the witness is not credible. Having found some more similar inconsistencies in the prosecution's case, the bench set aside the judgments of the trial court and the high court, acquitted the accused and held that the guilt of the appellant has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.