In Brief
A man was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl. The Supreme Court found serious procedural failures: (1) key prosecution witnesses testified differently at trial than in their initial police statements, implicating the appellant instead of a co-accused, but these contradictions were never brought on record; (2) the accused was never medically examined for DNA evidence despite the case relying entirely on circumstantial evidence; (3) crucial circumstances were never put to the accused during his Section 313 examination. The Court held that trial judges have a duty to actively discover truth, not be passive observers, and that the High Court failed to independently examine the record before confirming the death sentence. The matter was remitted to the High Court for reconsideration.
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