The Allahabad High Court has acquitted a woman, who was sentenced to death for killing her three children, observing that the prosecution has failed to establish her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The court found that the testimony of the eight-year-old surviving child witness suffered from “irreconcilable contradictions” and exhibited “clear hallmarks of tutoring”.
A bench comprising Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Jai Krishna Upadhyay on Tuesday set aside the conviction and sentences of Priyanka and Ashish alias Daini, her alleged partner and the younger brother of her dead husband.
While appellant-Priyanka had been sentenced to death by the trial court, appellant-Ashish had been given life imprisonment. The high court acquitted both and directed that they be released forthwith, if not wanted in any other case.
The case is related to the death of three children, Madhav (6), Aditya (5) and Mangal (4) whose bodies were recovered from the Sengur river in Auraiya on June 27, 2024.
According to FIR, Priyanka had taken her four sons to a bridge over the Sengur river at around 5 am in collusion with Ashish, with whom she had an illicit relationship, and wanted to get rid of the children so that they could continue their relationship.
It was alleged that they attempted to drown all four children, but Sonu, the eldest, survived while the other three died.
According to Sonu, a gram pradhan took him home where he narrated the incident following which the pradhan informed the police. He had also stated that Manish, the first informant, was his uncle, and he had told him about the incident, and he had got the FIR lodged.
However, the first informant (Manish) gave a different version stating that information about the deaths had been given to the police by the pradhan and that he had received information from there and not from the child.
He further stated that he did not know the name of the person who had informed him about the incident.
The court allowed the appeal filed by both the accused and set aside the lower court’s judgement by which Ashish was sentenced to life imprisonment while Priyanka was awarded death sentence under Section 302 IPC.
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