The Allahabad High Court yesterday overturned the conviction of a dentist couple for the murder of their teenage daughter and the family servant for lack of material evidence, their lawyer said.
Aarushi Talwar was found with her throat slit at the family home in the Delhi suburb of Noida in 2008.
A day later, the body of the Nepalese servant, Hemraj, was found on the roof of the house.
A trial court convicted the girl’s parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, after police alleged Rajesh had murdered his daughter and the servant in a rage when he found them in a compromising situation.
The couple, both dentists, were jailed for life.
But the high court overruled the decision saying it was not satisfied with the evidence and ordered the couple be freed, their lawyer Tanveer Ahmed Mir said.
“The court found no forensic or material evidence to prove that the Talwars had killed their daughter,” Mir told reporters outside a packed courtroom in Allahabad.
The court said the Central Bureau of Investigation had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Talwars committed the crime and that the couple should be given the benefit of doubt and acquitted.
“Once the basis of the prosecution was knocked out because it was unbelievable, then there was no motive. There was no sterling witness,” Mir said.
Aditya Wadhwa, another defence lawyer, said just because there was no other person present in the room where Aarushi was found dead, it was unjustified to blame the parents for the murder.
He said the bench of Justice B K Narayana and Justice A K Mishra found the charges baseless and ruled there was no strength in the allegations of the CBI.
Dhruv Gupta, another lawyer for the parents, said there was no eyewitness and in a case which depended on circumstantial evidence “the law of the land is that the benefit of doubt goes to the accused”.
“Also when is an alternative hypothesis (of some other killer), the benefit of doubt again goes to the accused.”
Both parents had denied the murder and insisted they were victims of botched investigations and unfair media coverage, damaging their defence.
The parents told police they were asleep in the next room when the murder was committed.
Police initially blamed the missing servant Hemraj, only to find his body on the terrace a day later with a similarly cut throat and head wounds.
The couple were not in the packed court for the hearing. They are in jail near New Delhi.
Media reports said Rajesh Talwar hugged jail officials after hearing the verdict.
The CBI said it would study the court order and “decide the future course of action”.
Pinaki Mishra, the lawyer who appeared for the couple in the Supreme Court, said the CBI will have no case to argue in the Supreme Court.
“In fact, they will have to answer a number of questions in the Supreme Court as to why they did not investigate properly.”
Former CBI director A P Singh, who then headed the agency when it took over the case, said: “There were loopholes in our investigation and that is why we had closed the case saying it was inconclusive.”
He said the high court verdict “does not say that the Talwars didn’t do it,” but that there was not enough evidence against them.
Aarushi’s case was labelled as a kind of crime more often associated with rural, conservative parts of India where “honour killings” are not uncommon.
Every twist in the investigation was extensively reported by the Indian press, turning the Talwars into household names.
“Finally my family can lead a dignified life. The court has upheld the facts and truth,” said Rajesh Talwar’s sister, Vandana, after the decision.
The prosecution in 2013 admitted there was no material evidence against the parents, basing their case on the “last-seen theory” which holds that the victims were last seen with the accused.
The couple is expected to be set free from Dasna jail in Ghaziabad today.
Since the parents’ first appearance in court, every development has been given wall-to-wall and often voyeuristic coverage by the media.