Patna High Court: The Division Bench comprising of Rakesh Kumar & Arvind Srivastava JJ., while setting aside the order of death sentence, held that the appellant was not provided with the appropriate legal aid which he was entitled to.
According to the brief facts of the case, the appellant was convicted under Section 302 of IPC for the offence of murder of two children. For the stated offence he was convicted by relying on the 5 witnesses out of the 16 mentioned witnesses. It has been stated that the cross-examination of all the witnesses could not be held due to appellant’s financial condition being poor and not being able to afford legal assistance in that regard.
The Hon’ble High Court, observes that the trial court should have taken steps for providing legal aid at the expense of the government as the case of appellant went weak due to the failure of cross-examination of all the witnesses and thereby Section 304 of CrPC has also not been complied in that regard. The court also observed that the primary witnesses were not examined by the prosecution which compels it to set aside the decision of the trial court and requires the High Court to remit back the matter.
The trial court has also been directed to take up the matter twice a week without any unnecessary delay as it holds a grave issue of the murder of two children, only then a logical end to this case would be attained. [State of Bihar v. Ram Prit Mandal,2018 SCC OnLine Pat 1080, order decided on 04-04-2018]