‘Loopholes, discrepancies in evidence produced by prosecution’ The Delhi High Court has freed a man, who was convicted by a trial court here for murder of his mother, saying there was “glaring loopholes and discrepancies” in the evidence produced by the prosecution. A Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri remarked that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove its case against Lucky Noel, who was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment in the case. The Bench noted that there was no direct evidence in the case to connect Noel with the offence in question and the case of the prosecution rests solely on circumstantial evidence. In the present case, the prosecution relied on the testimony of Rajender Singh, who was a tenant residing on the ground floor of the premises in Najafgarh where the deceased was residing on the first floor, as the last seen together witness. Last seen theory On the day of the incident — May 25, 2013 — Mr. Singh had not seen Noel together with the deceased at any point in time. “For the last seen theory to come into play, the most vital aspect is that the accused and the deceased must have been seen last alive and the time gap between the point in time when they were last seen alive and when the deceased was found dead, should be so narrow that it rules out the possibility of any person besides the accused of being the author of the crime,” the Bench noted. The question of invoking the last seen together theory as a circumstantial evidence against Noel does not arise, the Bench also said. “There are glaring loopholes and discrepancies at every step of the chain of circumstantial evidence sought to be woven together by the prosecution for this court to arrive at a decisive conclusion that the appellant is guilty of culpable homicide amounting to murder,” the High Court Bench further said while acquitting Noel.