HC directs trial court to hear murder case again

Ahmedabad: In an important order, Gujarat high court directed a trial court in Anand to re-conduct the final hearing in a case where a mother-daughter duo was tried and acquitted of killing a Mumbai-based businessman for his property.
The trial court acquitted the accused by granting them the benefit of the doubt in the absence of an eyewitness. This case was entirely based on circumstantial evidence and the doctrine of 'last seen together'.The HC quashed the acquittal order and remanded the case back to the Anand court to re-appreciate the evidence afresh.
According to the case details, the body of Mumbai-based businessman Muktikumar Shah was found near Anand in December 2012. Many people had seen him leave Ahmedabad in his car, along with Dhwani and her mother Amita Bhatt from Maninagar. Later that day, he was found dead - his wrists slit by a blade - and his two companions were not at the spot.
Police filed a chargesheet against Dhwani and Amita for murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence. They were accused of killing the businessman for his property.
The prosecution examined 31 witnesses and 67 pieces of documentary evidence during the trial. The prosecution insisted that as the mother-daughter duo were last seen together with the victim and the location of their mobile phones was the same that of the deceased, the court could convict them despite the absence of an eyewitness or direct evidence.
However, the trial court acquitted Dhwani and Amita in September 2014. This led the businessman's kin to move the HC, raising questions over the trial court's appreciation of evidence. After hearing the case, Justice S G Shah concluded that the trial court had not scrutinized the evidence properly. As the petition before the HC was a revision application against the trial court's decision and not an appeal, the court refrained from convicting the accused. "When this court is not empowered to convert the decisions of acquittal into conviction and thereby when the sessions court has to re-appreciate evidence and to take appropriate decision after providing reasonable opportunity to both the sides to prove their case," the court order reads.