A Balaghat man spent about three and a half years on death row after the trial court sentenced him to death for one child's murder and life for the other's in the April 2022 deaths of two minor girls. The High Court set aside the conviction on all charges, holding the investigation motivated and malafide, citing an overwritten section 161 statement date and a last-seen statement recorded only after recoveries and arrest, which destroyed the circumstantial chain. It ordered his forthwith release and awarded Rs 1,00,000 litigation cost from the State, recoverable by the SP from the investigating officer. The court-site PDF was unreachable at verification (certificate error); the operative order is corroborated by the Indian Kanoon listing and two independent press reports. A reported Supreme Court stay on the officer-cost could not be verified. Matters not addressed in the cited judgment text are not recorded here.
This page documents a court-adjudicated case from the judgment and cited sources below. Findings are attributed to the court; this record does not add findings of its own.
How verification works →By judgment dated 27 September 2025 in Criminal Reference (Capital) No. 1 of 2024 with Crl.A. Nos. 2969/2024 and 3272/2024, the Madhya Pradesh High Court (Coram: Vivek Agarwal, Avanindra Kumar Singh, JJ.) returned findings adverse to the Police personnel, Balaghat — judgment names no IO, and directed payment of compensation of Rs 1 lakh (Rs 1,00,000).
Compiled from the judgment and the cited sources. Findings are those of the court; this card adds none of its own.
Judgment dated 27 September 2025. This judgment may still be subject to appeal; initiation or pendency of an appeal is not a finding.
Reliable material supports a specifically documented fact relevant to that allegation, not necessarily the full allegation, causation, intent, unlawfulness, or responsibility.
Official finding: supports allegation.
Holding not recorded separately.
“It appears to be a motivated and malafide investigation, which cannot be given a seal of approval.” (para 55)
The Madhya Pradesh High Court recorded adverse findings against police personnel and ordered Rs 100,000.
(Round-8 full re-verification: published record re-checked against the judgment text (outcome, officers, quote, key facts) plus methodology-compliance pass; skills-guided adversarial re-verification of the published record against the judgment text (reverify/t1-*/adversarial-8.jsonl))
Corrections (0): No corrections recorded.
Review: Solo Staff combined review (one combined attestation) — not yet recorded.
These records are listed together because they share a state or a topic. That does not mean they are connected.
