Allahabad HC acquits man jailed for murder of wife

Lucknow, Sep 13 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court on Friday acquitted a man lodged in jail for more than seven years for the murder of his wife, holding that the prosecution even failed to establish the identity of an exhumed body, believed to be hers, during investigation.
    Directing the immediate release of Hafeez Khan, who has been behind the bars since January 15, 2017, a bench of justices AR Masoodi and Subhash Vidyarthi also asked the Uttar Pradesh government to pay him a compensation of Rs 1 lakh for the period he spent in custody.
    The court passed the verdict allowing the criminal appeal filed by Khan, who was booked for killing his wife Saira Bano.
    In its order, the bench observed, "The appellant husband was taken into custody soon after lodging of the FIR on January 15, 2017 and he continues to remain in custody till date. Now that this court has found that there was absolutely no evidence against him, it is a fit case for awarding costs of litigation as also to order payment of compensation for his confinement for a period exceeding seven and half years without any evidence to prove his guilt cannot be fully compensated in terms of money."
    The court added: "But as a token of compensation for the injustice done to him, we order that the state shall pay Rs 1 lakh to him towards compensation for the period spent by him in custody."
    Saira Bano got married to Khan on May 11, 2016. On January 15, 2017, her sister Shabana lodged a complaint at the Risia police station in Bahraich that her Saira Bano was being tortured for dowry and hence she was made to disappear.
    Later, on a tip-off by an informer, the police recovered a body from a grave and Shabana and her other sister Perveen identified it as that of Saira Bano's.
    The police filed its charge sheet against Khan on April 10, 2017. The additional sessions judge of Bahraich on March 27, 2019 sentenced him life imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 60,000. Khan then challenged this order in the high court.
    Deciding Khan's appeal on Friday, the high court noted that according to the inquest and the post-mortem report, some clothes, a thread and an amulet were found on the body, but the prosecution remained silent about the articles and no question was put to any witness about these.
    The bench so held, "Thus, there was no evidence to prove that Saira Bano had been killed and the dead body was of Saira Bano. In these circumstances, the only irresistible conclusion that we can draw is that the ASJ has concluded that the appellant killed Saira Bano by assaulting her on her neck with a knife and he had hidden the dead body in the grave of Kennoo Khan, without there being any evidence to support this conclusion and, therefore, this conclusion is perverse."

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)