AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat high court has acquitted a person by quashing his conviction to life imprisonment for a murder with observation that the evidence of ‘last seen together’ cannot be the sole basis for conviction and when the time-lag between a person going missing and finding of his body is considerably large, the courts should look for corroboration.
The case is from Panchmahal district. In 2013, a sessions court in Godhra punished one Pintoo Bariya for murder of Chhatrabhai Bariya, with whom he was last seen on December 24, 2011 evening. Pintoo was trying to mediate between Chhatrabhai and his estranged wife, who was Pintoo’s cousin. Two days later, Chhatrabhai’s body was found. As it was Pintoo with whom the deceased was seen the last time, he was held on charges of murder along with two other accused.
