After 12 yrs in jail for husband's killing, woman acquitted

CUTTACK: The Orissa HC has acquitted a woman who spent over 12 years in prison as part of life imprisonment for her husband's murder, saying the trial court judgment was a "miscarriage of justice".
According to the prosecution, Sunita Mundari had poured kerosene on husband Mangal and set him on fire at Jhirpani village in Sundargarh on Nov 28, 2011. A Rourkela sessions court sentenced her on Dec 20, 2014.Sunita, now 64, filed an HC appeal the same year. In its order on Thursday, an HC bench of Justices S K Sahoo and Chittaranjan Dash held that there was "no clinching evidence against the appellant (Sunita)".
The bench observed the circumstances on record do not form a complete chain to conclude with certainty that the woman committed the crime. "The findings of the trial court are not justified, the circumstances in favour of the appellant have been ignored and, thereby, it has resulted in miscarriage of justice," the bench added.
Setting aside Sunita's conviction by the trial court under Section 302 of IPC (murder), the HC ordered her release. The bench observed that the trial court had jumped to conclusion that Sunita had committed the murder despite lack of direct evidence.
"In a case based on circumstantial evidence, there is always a danger that conjecture or suspicion may take the place of legal proof," the bench said.