Ajit Sarkar and (above) Pappu Yadav

Patna, May 17: Patna High Court today acquitted for want of evidence controversial former RJD MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav who had been serving a life term following his conviction in the 1998 murder of CPM legislator Ajit Sarkar.

The division bench of Justice V.N. Sinha and Justice Amaresh Kumar Lal, which reserved its judgement on February 26, also set free former MLA Rajan Tiwary and Anil Kumar Yadav in the case.

The bench gave the trio the “benefit of doubt” and set aside the order passed by a lower court on February 14, 2008. The special CBI court in Patna had handed out life imprisonment to all the accused.

Pappu, 51, was convicted under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) for plotting the murder of Sarkar, which, according to the CBI, was executed by Tiwary and Yadav.

The high court also directed the authorities to release Pappu from jail forthwith if there is no other case pending against him. He has been lodged in Patna’s Beur jail since 2008, when he was transferred from Delhi’s high security Tihar jail.

Beur jail sources said Pappu, who learnt of his acquittal from news channels, was “happy”. His supporters in Purnea were reported to have fired in the air to celebrate the verdict.

Till late this evening, Pappu was still behind bars. Beur jail superintendent Shivendra Priyadarshi said he was yet to receive the court’s order and check if he has got bail in other cases. Sources said over a dozen criminal cases are pending against him.

The verdict has come as a shock for Madhavi Sarkar, the widow of the slain MLA. “The Supreme Court had cancelled Pappu Yadav’s bail and put him back in jail. I am shocked. I will be looking into what legal options I have,” she told The Telegraph.

In 2007, the top court had restrained any court in the country from granting bail to Pappu.

CBI’s standing counsel Bipin Kumar Sinha said the agency was considering an appeal.

Sarkar, a firebrand CPM legislator who had a running feud with Pappu over issues relating to farm labourers, was gunned down along with his driver Harendra Sharma and party worker Ashfaqur Rehman in Purnea town on June 14, 1998. The prosecution submitted that Anil Yadav was driving the motorcycle while Tiwary, who was riding pillion, fired at Sarkar. The prosecution also submitted details of telephone call details to the court.

The CBI also produced the voluntary confessional statement of Tiwary, in which he had admitted his involvement in the case, besides that of three eyewitnesses. The court rejected these as evidence.

But the evidence did not convince the high court division bench, which, in its 273-page judgment, said the CBI had failed to establish the case beyond all reasonable doubts.