New Delhi: "Though I know he is the man who committed the crime, I acquit him, giving him the benefit of the doubt," spoke Delhi's Additional Sessions Judge G P Thareja on December 3, 1999. He was delivering the verdict in the case of the rape and murder of Priyadarshini Mattoo.
Santosh Kumar Singh, a law student in the University of Delhi and the son of a senior officer of the Indian Police Service, has been a practicing lawyer in Delhi since his acquittal.
Mattoo was found strangled to death in the bedroom of her South Delhi apartment on January 23, 1996, with 19 injuries on her person.
According to facts that were accepted by the court in 1999, Santosh Kumar Singh, son of J P Singh, the then Inspector-General of Police, Pondicherry, harassed Mattoo in January and February 1995 and again in August, November and December that year by stalking her, telephoning her at her residence and at a hospital where her mother had been admitted, and stopping her car and shouting at her.
Mattoo lodged police complaints against him, following which, he apologised to her. She was provided with a personal security officer by the police on the orders of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, but Santosh Singh continued to harass her.
During the course of the trial, Santosh Singh's father J P Singh also served as joint commissioner of police in Delhi, the jurisdiction under which the crime was committed. Since it was a direct conflict of interest, at the instructions of the court the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Even though the overwhelming evidence pointed to Santosh Singh, the Indian judicial system acquitted him because the agencies prosecuting the case bungled up the prosecution. In his long judgment, Judge Thareja was very critical of the role of the Delhi police.
(With Agency inputs)
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