Court acquits man accused of rape and murder in 2016

Thane (PTI): A 33-yearold man from Palghar, who was arrested in 2016 for raping and killing a woman has been acquitted by a local court that gave a benefit of doubt to him for want of sufficient evidence.

The court, however, held him guilty for giving false information to the police and sentenced him to six months of simple imprisonment.

Since he has spent the last seven years in jail, he is not required to remain imprisoned any further, the court said.

The accused, a tribal man from Wada taluka in Palghar, was acquitted by Additional Sessions Court Judge AN Sirsikar in Thane on January 16. The copy of the order was made available on Friday.

The man, Sagar Waman Malavkar, is a la-

Legal Tussle

First India Bureau concluding the first phase of his Rahul Bharat Jodo Yatra. But Deve Gowda, expressing his inability to come there, has definitely sent his best wishes to Rahul. Interestingly, BJP is in constant touch with Deve Gowda’s son Kumaraswamy and is persuading him to join hands with it. Kumaraswamy is also among those who likes BJP more than Congress.

Mumbai: Former Supreme Court judge Rohinton Fali Nariman has came down heavily on Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju for his “diatribe” against the Collegium system over the appointment of judges. Warning that the country was on the brink of falling into “the abyss of a new dark age” if “independent and fearless judges” are not appointed in a

Court held him guilty of giving cops false info but gave him the benefit of doubt bourer from Varai Khurd village.

Appearing for the prosecution, additional public prosecutor Rakhi Pande told the court that the accused and the victim, then 18, were in a relationship. The woman had been asking him to marry her, although he was already married and had children.

On March 26, 2016, he took the woman to an isolated place and raped her, the prosecution said, adding that after the rape, the victim went to a nearby forest area, and was later found dead.

“It is proven that the accused gave false information to the public servant, that is police officer, and as such the offence under IPC Section 177 has been proven against him,” said the court.

against Collegium: Nariman slams Rijiju

timely manner, he said the government’s habit of “sitting on” the names of judges recommended by the collegium was “deadly” for democracy.

He was speaking at the Mumbai University while delivering the seventh Chief Justice MC Chagla Memorial Lecture on Friday. The former apex court judge also suggested the formation of a special five-judge bench to be formed. This bench could pass a judgment giving the government a 30-day deadline to comment or object to names sent in by the Collegium, he explained. “If the government has nothing to say with- in 30 days, then it will be taken as it has nothing to say.” he said.

“This sitting on names is a deadly for the country’s democracy. What you are doing is merely trying to wait out a particular Collegium in the hope that the next one changes its mind. Appointments must be carried out within a reasonable time period,” he also said.

“It is how a constitution works. If you don’t have fearless and independent judges, there is nothing left. As a matter of fact, according to me if this last bastion were to fall, we would enter the abyss of a new dark age, in which RK Laxman’s Common Man will ask himself only one question: If the salt shall lose its savor, wherewith shall the earth be salted?...” Nariman pointed out.

Law minister Rijiju has often questioned the Collegium system of appointment of judges, noting that it was “opaque and not transparent”.

Nariman was part of the Supreme Court Collegium until his retirement in August 2021.