Allahabad HC cites ‘defect’ in probe, commutes death sentence of four in CRPF camp attack case

Citing “defect successful investigation”, the Allahabad High Court connected Wednesday (October 29, 2025) acceptable speech the decease condemnation of 4 persons and beingness imprisonment of different successful transportation with a pre-dawn onslaught connected January 1, 2008, connected a CRPF campy successful Rampur territory of Uttar Pradesh.

The onslaught near 7 jawans and a rickshaw-puller dead. Eight persons, including 3 CRPF constables, were injured.

The Bench of Justices Siddharth Verma and Ram Manohar Narain Mishra acquitted Mohd. Sharif, Sabauddin, Imran Shahjad, Mohd. Farooq and Jang Bahadur Khan from the charges of execution among others. They were convicted by Justices Sidharth Verma

The court, however, recovered the 5 accused, including Khan who had been sentenced to beingness imprisonment, blameworthy nether Section 25 (1-A) of the Arms Act and sentenced them to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. It imposed a good of ₹ 1 lakh each connected the petitioners who had approached the precocious tribunal against the judgement passed by the further territory and sessions justice of Rampur connected November 1, 2019, and November 2, 2019.

“The defect successful probe went to the basal of the lawsuit and yet culminated successful the acquittal of the accused persons. We are profoundly acrophobic with the magnitude and enormity of the offence and astatine the aforesaid clip we are constrained to observe that the prosecution miserably failed to beryllium the lawsuit against the accused for the main offence beyond tenable uncertainty which is simply a aureate regularisation that runs done the web of transgression jurisprudence,” the tribunal noted.

Coming down heavy connected the investigative agency, the tribunal noted that the lawsuit would person reached a antithetic decision had the probe and the prosecution been conducted by trained police.

The tribunal pointed retired however the FIR stated that prosecution witnesses had ne'er known the accused from earlier and were ne'er made to place them done a trial recognition parade (TIP). Still, each the witnesses were alert that the accused had committed the offence. Under specified circumstances, it could not beryllium denied that the incidental did instrumentality place, but it needed to beryllium recovered retired arsenic who committed the offence, the tribunal said.

“In the lack of TIP, we person perfectly nary nexus which would marque america judge that the eyewitnesses really recognised the accused. Simply due to the fact that the accused were dreaded criminals and had been apprehended by the constabulary would not link them to the incident...,” the tribunal said.

It added that during the cross-examinations, the prosecution witnesses failed to found however and erstwhile they got to cognize the names of the accused erstwhile astatine the clip of the lodging of the FIR and portion signaling the statements, they did not cognize their names.