Mattoo case 8212; CBI gets an earful in RS

The minister said an appeal would be filed in the Delhi High Court 8220;at the earliest8221; against the verdict of additional sessions judge G P Thareja acquitting prime accused Santosh Kumar Singh.

The judge had also passed severe strictures against the CBI for the manner in which it had carried out the investigation. 8220;I have been informed by the CBI director, and he has said so in public, that after carefully studying the judgement and consulting legal officers, including the special counsel whohad been appointed for the case, he has come to the conclusion that there are sufficient grounds to appeal against the acquittal of the accused,8221; she said.

Mattoo, a 25-year-old Delhi University law student, who was harassed by an ex-student of the campus law centre, Santosh Kumar Singh, was found dead on January 23, 1996, at her residence in Vasant Kunj in South Delhi. The case was transferred to the CBI from Delhi police two days later and the agency made out a chargesheet against Singh on charges of rape and murder.

8220;That a young girl, just 25, should have been killed, is a matter of greatest anguish,8221; Raje said, observing 8220;that she should have been from a community which has already been put to such enormous suffering, compounds the anguish.8221;

She said, 8220;That a person should have have been harassing her for months so much so that a case had been registered to the effect, and a guard provided to her, and that it should have still been possible to murder her, adds outrage to that anguish.8221;

Theminister said the judge having felt compelled to pass strong strictures on the quality of investigation as well as prosecution 8220;is a matter of grave concern.8221;

8220;When an innocent person is punished, that is a miscarriage of justice. It is equally a miscarriage of justice when one who is guilty escapes the law.8221;

Acquainting the house with the sequence of events and the steps taken by the government in the matter, she said it was on record that from early 1995, Mattoo was being persistently harassed by Singh.

A case was registered in the Maurice Nagar police station under section 354 IPC outraging the modesty of a woman on November 6, 1995. The Delhi police had given her a personal security officer PSO.

Mattoo was alone in her house at the time of the murder. The Delhi police registered a case on that day under section 302 of the IPC. The post-mortem was done at the Safdarjang Hospital on January 25 and the same evening the case was transferred to the CBI, she said.

Raje said the CBIinvestigation started in January was completed by April, 1996. In particular, the request for DNA sampling was sent to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, on January 31, and the result of the test was received on March 20 that year.

She said the additional sessions judge, Delhi, framed charges against the accused on July 17, 1997, and the trial commenced on August 11 and arguments were concluded on April 18, 1998.

Following the transfer of the case from the court of S C Mittal, additional sessions judge, the case was assigned to G P Thareja on April 22, 1998, she said.

In his verdict delivered on December 3 this year, Thareja acquitted the accused of rape and gave the benefit of doubt in respect of the murder charge. While doing so, the judge expressed strong reservations about the adequacy of the investigation.

The minister observed that reports which had appeared subsequently in the press had compounded the government8217;s concern.

On the CBI decision to appeal against theacquittal, she said that was the route the law prescribed. 8220;As the house knows, there is a constitutional bar against a person being tried twice for the same charge. The authority to review the judgement which has been delivered lies with the appellate court. While doing so, the court can also ask for aspects of the event being investigated again.8221;

Raje said, 8220;But naturally, the concern of the house as well as of the government goes beyond this terrible and tragic death.8221; 8220;We have to take steps to ensure that there are no occasions in the future for any of us 8212; much less the courts 8212; to be struck by apprehensions of this sort.8221;

She said government had advised the CBI director to strengthen the investigating and prosecution abilities of his organisation.