A “classic case” of underprivileged being deprived quality legal assistance: Madras HC acquits 3 Dalit men sentenced to death

The Madras High Court was recently constrained to take note of the divide between the rich and the poor when it came to access to quality legal assistance. The High Court made telling observations in this regard while acquitting three Dalit men who had been awarded the death penalty for the rape and murder of a minor child in Theni..“This is a classic case where the accused, facing a charge of rape and murder, were deprived of quality legal assistance, resulting in the Trial Court believing the prosecution story and sentencing them to death. Alas, what trauma they must have undergone!“, remarked the Court..The Bench of Justices PN Prakash and B Pugalendhi of Madras High Court proceeded to recommend,.“It is time for the Bar Council of India to bestow its attention on this grey area and take effective steps to address this malady. “.The shoddy manner in which the investigation was conducted in the case and the apparent disregard for glaring inconsistencies in the evidence presented against the accused led the Court to observe,.“In this country, the rich are able to get the best legal brains and a successful criminal lawyer today is one who is endowed with the ability to suborn witnesses or protract the trial till the witnesses are won over. The poor are left to fend for themselves with poor quality legal service and eventually, justice becomes the biggest casualty in the game of litigation.“.The Court was dealing with an appeal filed by two of the accused against their 2018 conviction and sentence. The third accused in the case, Kumaresan, had chosen not to file an appeal. However, since the trial court’s death sentence had been referred to the Madras High Court for confirmation, the High Court interacted with Kumaresan as well..“…he stated that he has no means to engage an advocate to defend him either in the Referred Trial or file a separate appeal challenging the Judgment of the Trial Court”, notes the judgment..While an advocate was thereafter arranged to represent Kumaresan in the High Court, the sorry state of affairs highlighted by the case prompted the Court to observe,.“This is a matter of great concern for us and we are afraid that we are not able to make available quality legal service for the underprivileged accused like the appellants herein who are all Dalits and who would not have had the wherewithal to engage top-notch advocates. .That is precisely the reason as to why Kumaresan [A-3] did not even choose to prefer an appeal against the death sentence slapped on him and when we brought him before our Court and questioned him, he simply told us that he is hard pressed for money to defend himself and said stoically that he would rather suffer capital sentence, as if it is his destiny.“.The child victim, in this case, had disappeared on the evening of December 1, 2014. Her dead body was recovered the following day. Medical examination revealed that the child had been raped. All three accused, who were arrested on December 4, pleaded “not guilty” before the trial court. However, in April 2018, all three were convicted for the crime and sentenced to death..The case itself rested entirely on circumstantial evidence. However, on a closer examination of the material on record, including contradictory witness statements, the Court concluded,.“Though Section 29 of the POCSO Act casts a reverse burden on the accused, yet, to invoke that, there should be some minimum satisfactory evidence to connect the accused with the crime. The evidence, in this case, is too fragile even to confirm the conviction, much less to uphold the death sentence.“.Inter alia, the Madras High Court noted that there were unexplained delays in recording witness statements and forwarding them to the Court. In some instances, the witness statement reached the Court over nine months after they were originally recorded. Several witnesses were also revealed to be relatives of the victim. This suspicious delay appears to have prompted the Court to scrutinise the case records in closer detail..“… we smelt a rat and pored over the original records only to unearth a pandora’s box, from which, damning facts came to light. “.Among other damning aspects was the revelation that two of the witnesses were also named panchayatdars in an inquest report dated December 3, 2014. Despite this, they did not inform the police of having allegedly seen the accused with the victim before her death until the day after. The Court went on to criticise the police, the prosecution and the defence for the manner in which the case was conducted during investigation and trial..“It is indeed very unfortunate that the Trial Court, the Public Prosecutor and the defence counsel have all miserably failed to plod through the original records of the case. Had, at least, the defence counsel noticed these conflicting versions in the prosecution case, these contradictions could have been proved during the examination of the witnesses and the I.O.“.The Court went on to note that it was able to discern that the case against the accused was a sham based on the Court records alone..“In this case, we did not go through the case diary, but, went through only the original records available in the Court, from which itself, we have been able to ferret out a can of worms. Small wonder, we would have noticed a worm pit had we accessed the case diary. We are convinced beyond any speck or shred of doubt that the investigation of this case was not only perfunctory but also blameworthy.“.In view of the same, the Court proceeded to acquit all three from the case. Further, the Bench also directed that disciplinary action be taken against the concerned police officer for the lapses in the investigation. The Court also ordered the State to pay Rs. 5 lakh as compensation to the victim’s parents..Read the Judgment: