The Supreme Court has acquitted a man, serving a life term for murder, by reversing the concurrent rulings of an Andhra Pradesh trial court and the state high court and terming his conviction a 'miscarriage of justice'.

A bench of Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice J.M. Panchal set aside the conviction of Gajula Surya Prakasa Rao, holding that he was falsely implicated in the murder case by the deceased's wife and daughter due to a family dispute.

The appellate courts normally would not like to 're-appreciate and re-assess' the evidence, evaluated by the trial court, but in exceptional cases where there appears to be a miscarriage of justice, it was bound to interfere with the concurrent findings of the courts below,' the bench said in its ruling, released late Saturday evening.

'Enmity between the deceased and the appellant may be one possible reason for her (deceased's wife) to implicate the appellant in the case after deliberations,' said the bench adding: 'We are conscious that normally this court would not substitute its opinion by re-appreciating the evidence with that of concurrent findings of the two courts below.'

'But in the present case, having considered the findings of the courts below, we hold that the courts below found the appellant (Rao) guilty on the basis of evidence of the prosecution's witnesses - the victim's wife and his daughter - upon which no reliance could be placed,' said the bench.

The apex court gave the ruling while reversing the conviction and life sentence of Rao, awarded by a sessions court in Andhra Pradesh and endorsed by the high court for the murder of Cherukuri Gangaraju of Hyderabad in April 2002.

SEARCH