Justice delayed may not be justice served in this case: 16 years later, the apex court has acquitted six persons on death row and ordered a departmental inquiry against the police officers who 'framed' them for murder.

The Supreme Court directed the Maharashtra Chief Secretary on Tuesday to investigate the police officers within three months, and also ordered the state government to deposit a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the falsely convicted, within a month.

The crucial tell-tale signs of the botched up operation were that none of the convicted matched the description given by eye-witnesses. The bench of Justices AK Sikri, S Abdul Nazeer and MR Shah also pointed out that both the convicted and victims spoke Marathi, yet the prosecution said that the accused spoke in Hindi to the victims. "All the victims are Marathi speakers. The accused also hail from Maharashtra and are Marathi speakers. Therefore, if the accused were to speak with the victims, they would have spoken in Marathi and not in Hindi. There is a possibility that the culprits who were speaking in Hindi were not Marathi speakers and might be non-Marathis," the judges said.

In a case involving four deaths and gangrape, DNA and finger prints evidence were at variance with the prosecution story. Even the semen and vaginal swab samples, though sent for testing, were not produced during the trial by police.

Getting an impression that this was done to mask the real accused, the bench said, "All the accused are nomadic tribes and poor labourers. Therefore, false implication cannot be ruled out... there is a serious lapse on the part of the investigating agency."
THE 2003 CASE

In June 2003, a group of men entered Trambak Satote's hut in Belatgavan Shivir, Nashik, and raped his daughter and wife. They assaulted the family, which also comprised three sons, with sharp objects. Satote's eldest son and wife survived, and identified four criminals from a diary maintained by police. However, six others — Ankush Shinde, Rajya Shinde, Ambadas Shinde, Raju Shinde, Bapu Shinde and Surya — were charged with the crime, though not a single one matched the woman's description. Five of them were 25-30 years of age then, while the sixth was a juvenile. They were sentenced to death by the trial court in 2006 and by Bombay High Court in 2007. Although HC altered the death awarded to three of the accused to life term, in 2009, the Supreme Court restored capital punishment.