Supreme Court Judgment: The person whom the Supreme Court declared innocent after 45 years has already spent his entire life in jail; 3 people went to death The person declared innocent after 45 years by the Supreme Court has already served his entire life sentence; three people even died – ..

‘Justice delayed is justice denied’ – this saying has proved to be completely true in a 49-year-old high-profile murder case in Uttar Pradesh. The Supreme Court of the country has acquitted the three surviving accused in a famous murder case of 1977 after a 45-year long legal struggle, declaring them completely innocent. The Supreme Court completely rejected the entire investigation theory of Uttar Pradesh Police and the statements of alleged eyewitnesses in this case. However, this historic decision of the court came when one of the main accused ‘Heera Lal’, despite being innocent, had already served his entire life sentence behind the bars. This victory of justice has proved to be very pale and shocking due to the slowness of the system.

Uttar Pradesh Murder Case of 1977: 3 accused died in legal struggle of half a century

This very painful and complicated case started with a heinous murder incident that took place on 28 June 1977 in Uttar Pradesh. On the basis of the charge sheet of the local police, in the year 1981, the trial court (lower court) had convicted all the accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment. After this the accused approached the Allahabad High Court, but they were disappointed there too and the High Court upheld the sentence. During this half-century long legal drama, two of the total accused in the case died before the Supreme Court’s verdict. Of the remaining three surviving accused, two got bail from the Supreme Court in 2013, but unfortunately, Heera Lal’s bail plea was rejected on technical grounds. As a result, innocent Heera Lal had to suffer in jail for years and was finally able to come out of jail only under the amnesty policy of the UP government.

Supreme Court’s scathing comment: Police’s story fabricated, serious questions raised on eyewitness testimony

A division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta, while hearing a criminal appeal challenging the order of the Allahabad High Court, found several serious flaws and contradictions in the arguments of the police and government lawyers. The Supreme Court clearly said in its decision that the eyewitness testimony on the basis of which the police had prepared this case is completely unreliable. The court considered the defense’s argument as very convincing that the murder incident did not take place in the manner that the police had shown in its FIR and investigation report. The division bench said that both the trial court and the High Court had committed a grave judicial error in blindly accepting this fabricated theory of the police.

‘Presence of witnesses at the scene is impossible’: Slammed on the attitude of the lower court and the High Court

The apex court, while making very harsh remarks in its judgment, made it clear that the prosecution had completely failed to prove that the incident had taken place on the afternoon of June 28, 1977, exactly as claimed. The court said that the presence of the alleged eyewitnesses at the scene of the incident is not only doubtful but also appears to be extremely impossible geographically and practically. The Supreme Court said that when the evidence was so weak and unreliable, the accused should have been given the ‘benefit of doubt’ directly. The trial court and the Allahabad High Court have made the lives of innocent people hell by ignoring these basic legal aspects, which is against the principles of jurisprudence.