CUTTACK: More than 17 years after a 25-year-old woman walked into a police station in Odisha’s Sundargarh district and confessed to killing her husband, the Orissa high court has overturned the life sentence awarded to her, saying the trial court verdict was based on “surmises and conjectures”, and was a “miscarriage of justice“.
Laulina Achariya of Barupoda, who is now 42, turned up at Sundargarh town police station on May 28, 2007, claiming to have murdered her husband, Surendra Bag, 31.
Police went to her residence and found Surendra lying in a room, covered with a blanket up to his chest. There was blood everywhere and an axe was seized from the spot.
A murder case was registered, and Laulina was later put on trial. On July 3, 2009, the Sundargarh sessions court awarded her a life term in jail. Laulina, who was on bail since 2014, challenged the verdict in the HC.
Setting aside the trial court verdict on Oct 9, a division bench of justices Debabrata Dash and V Narasingh acquitted Laulina, observing that the conviction and sentencing were “not based on just and proper analysis of the evidence”.
“This court is constrained to observe that the case at hand is a glaring instance of miscarriage of justice where the accused has been fastened with guilt on preponderance of probability,” the bench said.
While there was no eyewitness to the crime, the court observed that the prosecution had not been able to establish “the last seen theory beyond reasonable doubt”.