New Delhi: The Allahabad High Court while acquitting the dentist couple Nupur and Rajesh Talwar of murdering their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj stated that the CBI had planted a witness to bolster their case and corroborate its theory.
The court, relying on the statement of CBI investigating officer MS Phartyal, concluded that Sanjay Chauhan, who was then the staff officer of the District Magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar, was planted by the probe agency and said his testimony could not be trusted.
“From the evidence of prosecution witness MS Phartyal it is fully established that prosecution witness Sanjay Chauhan was a planted witness as the CBI has not been able to come up with any cogent answer to the query of the defence as to how the CBI came to know about the visit of Chauhan to L-32 Jalvayu Vihar,” Justice Narayana stated in his judgment.
Chauhan, who lived in Greater Noida, had claimed in his testimony that he was returning home after a morning walk in Noida Stadium when he saw police vehicles outside the Talwars’ home and went to have a look.
He said that he saw “no grief” on the faces of Rajesh and Nupur Talwar on the morning the 14-year-old’s body was discovered. He had further claimed that that he noticed blood stains on the steps and railing leading to up the terrace, which was locked. Hemraj’s body was found on the terrace the next day.
But he refused that "prior to November 12, 2008 (the date of his testimony), he did not give any statement to any police officer or to any government official." He also stated that he did not tell the police anything when he visited the house as they “were doing their own work”.
The high court, however, said that the statement of Dr Nupur Talwar suggests that Sanjay Chauhan had never visited her house before. The defence counsel at the time had also accused Chauhan of making a false statement because no one from the family either noticed him or spoke to him when he reportedly visited the house. The counsel had also pointed out that it seemed incredulous that a man makes a 56km round trip for a morning walk.
The HC said that the CBI had used his testimony, along with that of Rohit Kochar and Dr Rajeev Kumar Varshney, to support its hypothesis that the Talwars dragged the body of Hemraj to the terrace and destroyed evidence.
“The prosecution has relied upon the post crime conduct of the appellants which according to the prosecution suggested that after committing the double murder they had wrapped the dead body of Hemraj in a bed sheet and then dragged it through the stairs up to the terrace and wiped out the whole stairs and whole marks of bloodstains," reads the verdict.
This part of the verdict puts further onus on the CBI to prove its case now in the apex court, where it has decided to appeal against the order of the Allahabad High Court.
In a strongly worded judgment that acquitted the Talwars, a division bench of Justice Bal Krishna Narayana and Justice AK Mishra of the HC stated that "the trial judge is supposed to be fair and transparent and should act as a man of ordinary prudence and he should not stretch his imagination to infinity — rendering the whole exercise mockery of law."
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