Delhi policeman facing trial for beating woman let off

A court here has let off a policeman, facing trial for beating a woman, saying he was doing duty in the vice president's house and was not present on the spot at the time of the alleged incident.

Metropolitan Magistrate Ruchika Singla acquitted Dharampal, a now retired policeman, who was facing trial on charges of voluntarily causing hurt and wrongfully restraining his daughter-in-law.

"Coupled with this fact, the accused has also examined defence witness, head constable Ajay Singh, who proved the duty roster of the accused for that day, whereby it is proved that the accused was on duty at the security at the vice president's house, New Delhi. Hence the accused has proved that he was not present at the spot at that time," the court said in its Aug 6 order that was made available Monday.

According to the prosecution, Dharampal's now deceased daughter-in-law Sunita had filed a case against the policeman in Kapashera in west Delhi alleging that he beat her Jan 14, 2007, when she went to collect rent from her tenants.

The accused's counsel informed the court that the present case was false, and filed only to grab the property of the retired policeman.

The defence counsel argued that the complainant was married to the deceased son of the accused and no complaint of harassment was made against him, till his son was alive.

"Only after the death of the son of the deceased, when the complainant sought to grab the property of the accused and the accused resisted the same, she filed all kinds of false cases against him, including the present case," the retired policeman's counsel informed the court.

Observing that the complaint cannot be proved as the complainant died during the course of the trial, and she could not be produced by the prosecution, the court held that the prosecution failed to prove its case.

After perusing the records carefully, and considering the contradiction between the versions of the prosecution witnesses, the court opined that the occurrence of the incident was not satisfactorily proved.

The court observed that the presence of a witness on the spot was doubtful as the complainant in her statement to the investigating officer did not mention that she had come to the spot along with a witness.