7 months ago
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The Supreme Court connected Wednesday (October 8, 2025) set speech the condemnation and decease condemnation of Dashwanth, a Chennai-based engineering graduate, accused of raping and sidesplitting a seven-year-old miss successful Mugalivakkam successful 2017. The Court said the prosecution had “miserably failed” to found his guilt beyond a tenable uncertainty and recovered superior lapses successful the investigation.
A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol, and Sandeep Mehta acknowledged that acquitting an accused successful specified a “heinous offence” could origin “societal distress,” but said the tribunal could not beryllium swayed by “moral condemnation oregon conjecture.”
“We cannot disregard oregon bypass the cardinal rule of transgression jurisprudence that the prosecution is duty-bound to beryllium the guilt of the accused beyond a tenable doubt. However, regrettably, the prosecution has miserably failed to bash truthful successful the instant case,” it said.
The Court noted that though it could person remanded the substance to the proceedings tribunal for a caller trial, it was much due to determine the lawsuit connected merits since the accused had been successful custody for astir 8 years owing to “protracted proceedings of proceedings and appeal.”
The Court besides pulled up the constabulary for failing to cod important CCTV footage, noting that specified behaviour warranted an “adverse inference” against the prosecution. “Failure to cod the information from the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) of the CCTV camera creates a sedate uncertainty connected the bonafides of the Investigation Agency. It seems that the Investigation Officers were intentionally trying to surface the information from being brought connected grounds and lavation their hands disconnected the matter, by making the appellant, a scapegoat,” the judgement authored by Justice Mehta said.
“We person minutely gone done the judgments of the High Court arsenic good arsenic the proceedings Court and find that portion coming to the respective conclusions regarding the guilt of the appellant, the proceedings Court and the High Court glossed implicit these patent infirmities and loopholes successful the lawsuit of the prosecution,” the tribunal said.
‘Lopsided trial’
The Bench besides recovered that the trial was conducted successful a “lopsided mode and without owed deference to the principles of just trial.”
It noted that the accused had been denied ineligible practice until the charges were framed, undermining his close to an effectual defence. “In a lawsuit wherever an accused is facing charges for offences which transportation superior punishment, this law mandate becomes adjacent much sacrosanct, and it is the work of the Court arsenic good arsenic the State to guarantee that the accused is not prejudiced oregon deprived of a just accidental of defending himself successful a lawsuit wherever helium whitethorn beryllium awarded decease penalty,” it said.
The lawsuit pertained to the abduction, intersexual assault, and execution of a seven-year-old miss who went missing from her flat analyzable successful Mugalivakkam connected February 6, 2017. The Chennai constabulary arrested Dashwanth, a nonmigratory of the aforesaid building, alleging that helium had lured the kid distant with a canine earlier sexually assaulting and sidesplitting her.
The Chengalpattu Sessions Court sentenced him to decease connected February 19, 2018, and the Madras High Court upheld it connected July 10, 2018.
