‘Dashwanth walks free, my daughter denied justice’: Father breaks down after SC verdict

CHENNAI: He lost his seven-year-old daughter to sexual assault and murder. His marriage suffered in the aftermath. His wife accused him of “not doing enough” to avenge her death but have faith in the judiciary, and walked out with their son two years ago.

The greatest travesty of justice in the Supreme Court’s acquittal of the accused in the 2017 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl in Chennai is that those overridden with guilt are the child’s parents.

“My faith in the judicial system is broken,” the victim’s father lamented to this reporter over a phone call. “What will I tell my son if he asks me why I could not get justice for his sister? What if he accuses me of being a lousy father?”

On October 8 (Wednesday), the Supreme Court acquitted S Dashwanth, the man convicted and sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and murdering a seven-year-old girl in 2017. The apex court held that the trial in the case was conducted in a “lopsided manner” and that he was made a “scapegoat” by the Tamil Nadu police.

Dashwanth, an engineer, was arrested for murdering the girl, whose charred body was found along a National Highway in February 2017. He was convicted in 2018 by the Chengalpattu Mahila Court and was awarded death penalty and also 46 years of imprisonment. The Madras High Court upheld the death sentence, which was challenged before the Supreme Court.

Hearing his appeal, the bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta held that the trial Court and the High Court glossed over the infirmities and loopholes in the prosecution’s case and set aside the conviction and death sentence, and acquitted him of all charges.

A day later, on October 9, Dashwanth walked out of Central Prison, Puzhal, a free man.

Distressed and disoriented since the verdict, father of the victim says things he probably did not mean to, but the essence of his ramblings is that he lost faith in the justice system. “Even initially, I did not have much faith in the justice system. But, the authorities convinced me. In the trial court and High Court, I even hired my own lawyer to assist the prosecution and it seemed justice was served,” he states. “Now, the Supreme court has reversed the judgment. We’re ordinary people. How much more can I fight? I am not sure if I have any more legal options left to pursue.”

The timing of the Supreme Court verdict couldn’t be more devastating as Dashwanth was set free just two days before the victim’s birthday (October 10). “Is Tamil Nadu government not responsible for its citizens’ safety? The police, lawyers, and judges – all of them take salaries from people’s money and this is what happens to a child,” the father fumes. “I will never suggest anyone to take the legal route. In these seven-and-a-half years since my child’s murder, I’ve seen several such cases, and I wonder if they got justice.”

He shifted to Andhra Pradesh after his daughter’s death and kept shuttling between Chennai and AP to attend court hearings. All the while, his wife had egged him to stop pursuing the legal route and take matters into his own hands.

Accusing him of “not protecting our daughter”, she asked: “How are you going to protect us?” and left him.

When suggested that he did nothing wrong in pursuing the legal route to get justice and that he need not feel guilty for his actions, the dejected father says, “The legal system is on his side. God seems to be on his side. My own family is not by my side.”

How to bungle cases in limelight: Tamil Nadu police shows the way

The conviction rate of the Tamil Nadu police in heinous crimes is nothing to write home about, but their botched investigations of cases that are ‘sensationalised’ in the media have become rather unsavoury. Case in point is the acquittal of the man convicted of sexually assaulting and killing a seven-year-old girl, which is the latest addition to their museum of failures.

In June 2024, the Madras High Court acquitted all nine accused in the 2013 murder of neurosurgeon SD Subbiah the same year. The court set aside the death sentences against the seven accused, and the life term for the remaining two. A retired government neurosurgeon, Dr Subbiah was attacked in broad daylight in RA Puram on September 14, 2013.

Subbiah, who suffered 27 cuts all across the body, died on September 23 at the private hospital where he worked as a consultant. The case garnered attention as the whole act was ‘caught on a CCTV camera’.

The prosecution’s case was that a civil dispute between the accused persons and the deceased doctor over a 2-acre property in Anjugramam village in Kanniyakumari district was the genesis of the case which ended in a brutal murder. Those convicted and eventually acquitted included a doctor, an advocate, and an engineer. While setting aside the conviction in the murder case, the Madras High Court noted that the evidence from the prosecution, at best, leads to a grave suspicion of the accused and does not pass the test of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

“The manner in which the witnesses who overheard minute details in conspiracy meetings, keeping it to themselves for a long time and appearing out of nowhere before the investigating officers, and the manner in which a witness witnessed the money transactions, without any plausible explanation as to how the investigating officer discovered their existence and their knowledge of the facts, the belated recording of their statements, the allegation of bias – all make of this concludes that the finding of guilt cannot be recorded, although, there is a grave suspicion against some of the accused,” the court noted.

Another prominent case that the Tamil Nadu police messed up was the death of a Class 2 student, S Sruthi, who fell through a gaping hole in her school bus on July 25, 2012, when the bus was in motion. In this case, the prosecution did not even get a favourable judgment in the trial court. On January 25, 2023, almost a decade after the incident, a Chengalpattu court declared all the accused, including the Correspondent of the private school, not guilty in Sruthi’s death.

Chennai Police’s Mount Traffic Investigation wing could not prove that there was a hole in the bus and that the stakeholders’ negligence had led to the death of the seven-year-old child. While several witnesses-parents of other students turned hostile jolting the prosecution case, there were also instances of the police bungling their own investigation, which worked against them in court.

One of their Constables deposed that he took photographs of the hole in the bus after the accident on his mobile phone and transferred the images to a Special Sub Inspector Rajendran through bluetooth for taking prints of the photos, before it was burnt down by a mob. But, during cross-examination, Constable Deivasigamani deposed that the model of phone he had was Nokia 3100, which the court noted, did not have a camera facility. Traffic Inspector Venkatesan, who initially submitted that he took photographs of the hole, said during the cross examination that he did not take any photograph. The then Investigating Officer, Inspector S Dhinakaran did not produce mobile phones in which the photographs of the hole in the bus were allegedly taken, as evidence before the court.

His sub-ordinates gave contradictory statements about their presence at the scene of crime after the incident, all of which made the gaping hole larger and larger in the prosecution theory. “There is no single piece of evidence to prove that the bus had hole on the floor,” Additional District Judge K Kayathri, Chengalpattu, had noted in her judgment.

‘Need separate Investigation Officers for heinous crimes’

Though the Tamil Nadu Police is notorious for botching up investigations, there have been many cases when they have done everything right and by the book. In the recent past, TN Police secured a conviction against an accused who pushed a college student, Sathya in St Thomas Mount Railway Station in October 2022, and the accused in the Anna University sexual assault case in quick time. While the CB-CID handled the first case, the second was handled by a court-appointed SIT (Special Investigation Team).

The common factor in both cases is that the investigating teams had no other cases to focus on, unlike the Law and Order Inspectors. Several persons in the police department that DT Next spoke to pointed out that the workload of Law and Order Wing officers was one of the deterrents in following proper procedures in murder investigations. Some senior officers also observed that the State would do well to appoint separate officers for homicide investigations and other heinous crimes after selecting them through an internal examination system and selection like in some countries.

“However, it is a major policy decision, and it requires political will to bring about it,” a senior police officer said. According to officials, Tamil Nadu Police Academy is teaching various refresher courses and standard operating procedures for investigation. It also shares a check-list for important cases, and guidelines issued by various courts of law to the police personnel periodically. A ‘Handbook of Investigation’ is also provided to trainee cops to enhance their skills by imbibing the nuances of investigation of various types of crimes. A standard operating procedure prepared by the CBCID for investigations has also been circulated to all police officers to enhance their investigation skills.

However, practical difficulties too should be taken into account, say police officers. “In the present system, there are two Inspectors – one for Law and Order, and another for Crime, for a case. Instead, there can be one more senior Inspector added to the police stations to look only after murder investigations, which will unburden the Law and Order officer’s workload,” opined another senior officer. “We’re properly trained to follow procedures. But, somewhere along the way, a bad practice sets in and it becomes the norm.” Criminal lawyers point out to the practice of ‘standard chargesheets’ in the police system, wherein either deliberately or by mechanical work, they are filled with loopholes that lead to acquittals and embarrassing observations by the judges about the police.

However, while an embarrassment can be overcome, more often than not, it can be lethal for society. Officers claim that they have a system to review acquittals, but disciplinary action against Investigating Officers who bungle up murder cases does not seem to be in practice. It is pertinent to point out an observation by the Madras High Court regarding the same.

“In a murder case, if the trial ends in acquittal, a practice was in existence, not very long ago, to call for an explanation from the Investigation Officer. Disciplinary proceedings were initiated, if it was found that the investigation was perfunctory. But, it appears, this practice is given a go-by, and the present-day investigations are carried out by certain officers as to their whims and fancies,” Justice B Pugalendhi of the MHC had observed in his scathing order dated September 8, 2020, on the need for reforms in investigation practices.