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Delhi's Saket Court convicted five people in a 9-year-old case of attempt to murder that took place in the intervening night of December 31, 2014.
The incident occurred in Saket area following an altercation of the accused with two other men. Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Vishal Pahuja convicted Karan alias Kannu, Karan alias Kalyan, Suraj, Himanshu and Amit under sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 34 (common intention) of IPC. During the hearing, the court said that the testimony of three eyewitnesses, including the victim Pushkar, stood firm and consistent during their deposition before the court leaving no room to doubt the veracity of their testimony. "Their testimonies appears to be convincing and weighty enough to.sustain the conviction of accused persons," ASJ Vishal Pahuja said in the judgement passed on October 7. The court said that the prosecution has successfully proved the case beyond any doubt against the accused persons by leading cogent evidence on record. The court rejected the arguments that the accused were falsely implicated and held, "There is nothing on record to suggest if police has any ulterior motive to falsely implicate the accused persons in this case nor it is the argument of defence so no doubt on the story of prosecution can be raised." The court also held that the presence of the accused persons at the spot was established through testimony of witnesses and said, "It is hard to believe that a person who has suffered dangerous injuries will falsely implicate the accused persons leaving the actual assailants scot-free." It was argued by the defence counsel that there were inconsistency and contradictions in the testimonies of the witnesses. The court rejected the arguments and said that it is a settled proposition of law that minorcontradiction, inconsistencies, embellishment or improvement on trivial matters which do not affect the core of the prosecution case could not be made a ground on which the evidence can be rejected in its entirety. It was also argued by the defence counsel that there were serious lapses such as the non-examination of the person who took the victim to a hospital, not obtaining the call detail records (CDRs) of the accused persons to establish their presence, CCTV footage and non-recovery of the knife. The court said that even if no recovery of the weapon is proved, the ocular evidence in the form of testimony of the material witnesses is sufficient to prove the role of the accused persons whereby they used knives to assault the victim. The matter has been posted on October 21 for filing of reports mandatory in law. As per prosecution, Pushkar Singh Nihal was admitted in the hospital on January 1, 2015, with the alleged history of stab wound and assault. During the investigation, it was found that victim Pushkar was assaulted by a group of men with knives and the incident was witnessed by victim's brother, Anand Singh. Thereafter an FIR was registered and accused persons were arrested. (ANI)
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