Explained: Supreme Court's decision to acquit 3 men on death sentence in Delhi’s Chhawla rape-murder case

“We have lost our faith in the judiciary… We have also lost the will to live,” lamented the father of the 19-year-old, who was raped and murdered by three men in Delhi’s Chhawla area in 2012, after the Supreme Court acquitted the men of the crime on Monday (7 November).

The three men — Ravi Kumar, Rahul and Vinod — were held guilty and sentenced to death by the trial court in 2014. The Delhi High Court upheld the death sentence, likening the men to “predators” trawling the streets “hunting for prey”.

However, on Monday, a bench of Chief Justice of India U U Lalit and Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi acquitted the three, stating that the prosecution had “failed to prove their case” against the men, giving them “the benefit of the doubt”.

2012 Chhawla rape case | Supreme Court reserves order on the issue of sentence of three convicts, who were awarded the death penalty by Delhi Court after being held guilty of raping and killing a 19-year-old woman

— ANI (@ANI) April 7, 2022

What led to the exoneration of the three men? Why did the Supreme Court not uphold their death sentences? How did the prosecution fail in the case?

Why did the SC let the men off?

The Supreme Court in acquitting the men maintained that there were glaring lapses in the investigation and trial of the case and that the prosecution’s case had rested on circumstantial evidence and had failed to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt.

Chhawla Judgment by Roshneesh K'Maneck on Scribd

On the matter of lapses in investigation, the apex court found that of 49 witnesses, 10 were not cross-examined in the trial. It added that many other important witnesses were not adequately cross-examined by the defence counsel.

The judgment read, “In the instant case, material witnesses examined by the prosecution having not been either cross-examined or adequately examined, and the trial court also having acted as a passive umpire, we find that the appellants-accused were deprived of their rights to have a fair trial, apart from the fact that the truth also could not be elicited by the trial court.”

The judges in their judgment also found that the identity of the accused had never been established by the prosecution. “From the… evidence of the concerned witnesses, it clearly transpires that neither any TI (test identification) parade was conducted by the investigating officer during the course of investigation for the identification of the accused, nor any of the witnesses had identified the accused during their respective depositions before the court. Therefore, the very identity of the appellants-accused having not been duly established, the entire case of the prosecution falls flat on the very first circumstance having not been duly proved by any evidence, much less clinching evidence, against the appellants-accused.”

The judgment went on to read, as per an Indian Express report, “As demonstrated earlier, the evidence with regard to the arrest of the appellants-accused, their identification, discoveries and recoveries of the incriminating articles, identity of the Indica Car, the seizures and sealing of the articles and collection of samples, the medical and scientific evidence, the report of DNA profiling, the evidence with regard to the CDRs etc were not proved by the prosecution by leading, cogent, clinching and clear evidence much less unerringly pointing the guilt of the accused.”

What does SC’s ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ mean?

In acquitting the three men — Ravi Kumar, Rahul and Vinod — Justice Bela Trivedi wrote in the judgment that “the prosecution has to bring home the charges levelled against them beyond reasonable doubt, which the prosecution has failed to do in the instant case, resultantly, the Court is left with no alternative but to acquit the accused, though involved in a very heinous crime.”

So, what exactly does beyond reasonable doubt mean?

In the legal world, no one is guilty until proven guilty. Similarly, no one is guilty until a court of law declares them so.

There should be no doubt whether the accused is guilty or not. If there is slightest doubt, no matter how small it is, the benefit will go to the accused

The law states that in criminal cases, the guilt should be proved beyond any reasonable doubt that a reasonable man with ordinary prudence can have. There should be no doubt whether the accused is guilty or not. If there is slightest doubt, no matter how small it is, the benefit will go to the accused.

In India, the rule is that whoever alleges a fact must prove it. In a criminal trial, it is the prosecution who alleges that the accused has committed the offence and so the burden lies upon the prosecution to prove the same.

The principal of beyond reasonable doubt is very important to the judiciary system in India and in 2018, the Supreme Court while hearing a case of murder and rioting in Uttar Pradesh had said that the benefit of the doubt must favour the accused irrespective of the gravity of the crime.

The court had then ruled, “The accused cannot be expected to relinquish his innocence at the hands of an inefficacious prosecution, which is ridden with investigative deficiencies. The benefit of doubt arising out of such inefficient investigation, must be bestowed upon the accused.”

What was the Chhawla murder-rape case?

In February 2012, the 19-year-old victim, who worked with a private company in Gurugram’s Cyber City, was returning home from work and got off a bus at Delhi’s Qutub Vihar — a small walk from her house in Chhawla Camp when she was abducted.

Three days later, her mutilated body was found in a field in Rodhai village in Haryana’s Rewari district.

Investigations had revealed that the woman had sustained massive injuries apart from rape and that she had been attacked with car tools, glass bottles and other weapons. According to an NDTV report, acid had been poured in the woman’s eyes and a bottle of liquor was inserted in her private parts.

The police then arrested the three men — Ravi Kumar, Rahul and Vinod. In February 2014, a trial court held them guilty and sentenced them to death. This order was then upheld by the Delhi High Court in August 2014.

With inputs from agencies

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