A day after the judgement in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case,three former judges of the Delhi High Court have expressed dismay over the verdict,that cleared former Haryana IGP R K Sharma and two others of all charges but upheld the life sentence of a co-accused. Justices (retired) R S Sodhi, J D Kapoor and S N Dhingra told Newsline that it was difficult for them to find legal excellence in the judgement that leaves the questions open on why and at whose instance Shivani was killed,but refrained from using its power to order an additional inquiry. The judgement says the court could not ascertain the motive of the killing and also leaves the query open as to who got her killed. There was something beyond Pradeep (the hitman) killing her. Hence,the judgement never had to stop there. It should have devised ways to give answers to the public and brought all the guilty to book, said Justice Sodhi. According to him,the High Court has extraordinary powers,like the Supreme Court,to order an additional inquiry into the lacuna of the prosecutions case. I am hugely disappointed with the verdict. A High Court is a constitutional authority and once it says somebody committed a murder but the motive was unknown in view of the unreliable evidence before it,it amounts to a case of botched-up probe. Why stop at it? The court must have done its bit to bring out the truth by ordering a fresh or an additional inquiry, Justice Sodhi added. Here is an alleged prime conspirator,who is an IPS officer,a victim having an out-of-marriage relationship with him,and finally a killer,who is a nobody. And who spends time behind the bar at the end of it all,that nobody. I feel sorry for this judgement, Justice Sodhi said. Agreeing with his views,Justice Kapoor said the court should have called for a further probe to fill the lacuna in the prosecutions case. If Pradeep did not have a known motive,he could be deemed to be a hired killer,which again means somebody hired him to execute the murder. If the court thought the evidence before it was not adequate to convict the accused,it could at least ask for another bout of probe to nail the real culprits, Justice Kapoor said. He said an inquiry was necessitated considering that the court did note that it was convicting Pradeep only on the basis of scientific and circumstantial evidence but with no motive. Justice Dhingra blamed it on the over-subscription of the benefit of doubt by judges. In this case,it was obligated on the court to find out the truth. An argument on the passage of time since the incident cannot suffice the interest of justice and hence,an additional inquiry should have been done, he said. On the courts observation that the call records,which could establish a conspiracy,could have been fudged,Justice Dhingra said that it was nothing short of a crime and the court must have ordered an inquiry into the tampering as well.
