Call for a system that is willing to evolve

After putting in four years in jail for a crime that investigating agencies don’t know who committed, the doctor couple finally walked free after the High Court stated that the Talwars couldn’t be held guilty as per the circumstance and the evidence on record.

The Aarushi Talwar-Hemraj double murder is a reflection of the criminal investigation system in India. The Talwars have been given benefit of doubt and not a clean chit by the Allahabad high court nine years after the painful events in which their teenaged daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj were found murdered at their Noida home. The case ran like a Bollywood thriller, that saw multiple investigations by the police and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the trail in the CBI special court. The special court had given life sentences to the dentist couple and the subsequent denouncement in the High Court, can’t underline the pain that the parents of the deceased Aarushi must have undergone.  Shoddy handling of the crime scene, overlooking some probable evidences not only show the competence of the investigation authorities but also cast shadow on integrity and robustness of the system.

A total of 28 finger prints were picked up from the crime scene, some of them that of those who had a free access to the scene including neighbors, media, domestic help from nearby etc. Reports from media in India show that even as the CBI maintained that its investigators collected all circumstantial and scientific evidence to nail the accused, CBI did not go for the crucial “‘Touch-DNA” as it was apparently “expensive”. The samples for the “Touch-DNA” test are sent to UK as there’s no facility in India to carry this sophisticated scientific test. Dr. Rajesh Talwar had initially stressed the need for the LCN or Touch DNA test to establish his innocence in the case. Due to the cost factor and experts opinion that the method is not foolproof, it was felt by the investigation agency to concentrate on the material at hand instead of embarking on a “wild goose chase”. Today the killer of Aarushi and Hemraj is still at large and his/her identity is not known to authorities and can poise grave danger to others.

The irony of the criminal justice system in India is that it’s an accused centered process, where the emphasis is to determine the guilt of the accused and not to find the real culprit. This means that after this verdict, unless and until there is again a fresh investigation, the murderer of Aarushi and Hemraj will remain unknown. The motivation for the murder remains unexplained, and the weapon remains a mystery till date.

Is there a need to change to victim centered investigation and judicial system? Also the CBI’s approach in this case has been in question. Three CBI Directors and two of its top investigators had entirely different takes on who the culprits were. While Vijay Shankar as Director backed the theory that three servants committed the murders by entering the Talwars flat while the couple was asleep, his successor Ashwani Kumar set the servants free and set up a new team that changed the probe direction to the parents. The third CBI director, A.P. Singh, drew a middle path – allowing a closure report to be filed but saying that the parents were the only suspects. CBI’s role has not been up to the mark in other cases too. There is a need to let the legal system evolve to deal with cases speedily but in a thorough manner and to ensure that the innocent are not held guilty or the guilty allowed escape routes because of its sheer inertia in handling its tasks.  Another lesson that this case presents is that investigation and the prosecution agencies should be different which is not so in the case of CBI. But is India prepared to evolve for such a change?