Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Tuesday set aside a conviction and death sentence awarded to a man for an alleged April 2017 rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl in Nashik and remanded the case for a fresh trial. The child was strangulated with a wire, the prosecution said.Justices Sarang Kotwal and Sandesh Patil held that the trial court was hasty and did not provide the accused with a fair opportunity to defend himself. The deposition of 11 prosecution witnesses was conducted with no lawyer assigned for the main accused. The cross-examination of witnesses by a legal aid lawyer was also “cursory”, HC said. Ordering a fresh trial in the case, the HC said, “The trial judge showed unnecessary hurry to conclude the trial. Undoubtedly it was a serious case and the trial needed to be expedited; but that could not be done at the expense of principles of fair trial.”Citing from the Supreme Court, the judges said, “The right to free legal services was an essential ingredient of ‘reasonable, fair and just’ procedure for an accused and it must be held implicit in the right guaranteed by Article 21—fundamental right to life.”There were four accused in the case from Nashik. After the trial court convicted all four and gave one the noose, subject to confirmation from HC, one of the three who were given the lesser sentence of seven years’ rigorous imprisonment only for the offence of destruction of evidence, died.The remaining two, who also challenged their conviction, were on bail and the HC continued their liberty. The main accused, whose death sentence stands quashed along with his conviction, will face the fresh trial while remaining in prison. He has been behind bars since his arrest on April 25, 2017.Before the HC, not just Yug Choudhary, counsel for the accused whose death sentence confirmation was under reference, sought acquittal or a de novo trial citing denial of a fair trial and thus miscarriage of justice, but even advocate K H Holambe Patil for the other two accused, advocate Ameeta Kuttikrishnan for the informant, and additional public prosecutor for state S D Shinde were in favour of the case being remanded back.The HC noted that when the mother of the child was examined as the prime prosecution witness in the trial, the main accused was not given a legal aid counsel, and when one was appointed six court dates later, he withdrew as the accused wanted to appoint a private lawyer but could not. The HC said the proceedings before the trial court, even for framing of charge, went on with him having no lawyer, a violation of his fundamental rights. The main accused, given his poor financial condition, had a series of legal aid lawyers and eventually engaged a private lawyer, but one prosecution witness never showed up for his cross-examination, which would have established that he was not connected at all with the house where her body was found.The HC refrained from speaking about the merits of the case since they were remanding the matter.
