The Supreme Court has set aside the death penalty imposed on two youths for the alleged rape and murder of a Dalit woman, holding that the evidence
produced by the prosecution was riddled with infirmities and claims.

Writing the judgment, Justice Sandeep Mehta observed: “We are of the considered opinion that the prosecution has failed to establish the authenticity and reliability of the sketches on the basis whereof the appellants are alleged to have been identified and apprehended, which completely demolishes the pivotal circumstance of identification of the appellants on which the entire prosecution case hinges.”

The court noted that the duo — Mehtab and Sushil alias Bhura — were convicted mainly based on some sketches drawn by an artist on the basis of two prosecution witnesses who claimed to have made enquiries about the woman a few hours before her alleged rape and murder.

Besides, no test identification parade was conducted, and the statutory norms governing the preservation of forensic evidence were ignored by the investigating agency, a three-judge bench of Justices Mehta, Vikram Nath and Vijay Bishnoi said.

An SC-ST court and Uttarakhand High Court had pronounced the death penalty on Mehtab and Sushil.