PRAYAGRAJ, Feb. 5 -- The Allahabad high court recently acquitted a man, aged around 100 years, 42 years after his conviction in a murder case dating back to 1982, as the prosecution failed to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. The incident had taken place in Hamirpur and, after trial, the sessions court pronounced life term to the appellant - Dhani Ram in 1984. He challenged the judgment dated July 27, 1984, passed by additional sessions judge, Hamirpur, filing an appeal before the high court the same year. "When a person stands before the court at the twilight of existence, the insistence on penal consequences, after decades of procedural delay, risks transforming justice into a ritual divorced from the purpose it intends. When the system itself has been unable to deliver finality within a reasonable time, courts are justified in adopting a tempered, human approach while fashioning relief," the court said. The bench comprising Justice Chandra Dhari Singh and Justice Sanjiv Kumar allowed the appeal of Dhani Ram and further pointed out that the anxiety, uncertainty and social consequences suffered by the accused over decades cannot be ignored while assessing what justice now demands. As the appellant, Dhani Ram, was on bail, the court directed that his bail bond shall stand discharged. "Justice is not an abstraction divorced from human conditions. The law cannot be oblivious to the reality that advancing age brings with its physical fragility, dependence and a narrowing horizon of life. A criminal process that stretches across generation ceases to be only a mechanism of accountability and assumes, in itself, the character of punishment," added the bench. On August 9, 1982, the informant (Raja Bhaiya) and his brother (the deceased) were returning home when they met Maiku, who was armed with a gun, Satti Din, who was armed with a spear and the appellant- Dhani Ram, who was armed with an axe. Satti Din and Dhani Ram (appellant) allegedly exhorted Maiku to kill Gunuwa, as he had once got his pistol seized and also taken away his six bighas of land. Due to previous enmity, Maiku shot at him. The bullet hit the deceased on his back, whereby he fell down and died. Hearing the noise of the gunshot, four persons rushed towards the site and tried to intervene. The accused persons, however, ran away. In July 1984, the additional sessions judge, Hamirpur, convicted Satti Din and Dhani Ram under Section 302 (murder) read with Section 34 (common intention) of the IPC and sentenced them to life imprisonment. However, Dhani Ram was later released on bail the same year in 1984. The main accused, Maiku, had absconded. Satti Din passed away during the pendency of his appeal and thus, only Dhani Ram remained before the high court, as the sole surviving appellant. The appellant's counsel submitted that the appellant is about 100 years of age and that he had only been assigned the role of exhortation. It was submitted that the main accused person, i.e. Maiku, who allegedly caused firearm injuries to the deceased, was never arrested by the police. The state counsel, on the other hand, opposed the criminal appeal. However, he also conceded that the accused-appellant is now 100 years old. Analysing the case as well as the evidence on record, the high court found the testimonies of the two key witnesses and other documentary evidences, to be fundamentally untrustworthy for contradiction in the genesis of occurrence, conduct unbecoming of an eye witness, omission in the FIR and inherent improbabilities. Thus, holding that the genesis and manner of the incident is doubtful, and the prosecution suppressed the origin of the occurrence, the court concluded that the appellant was entitled to the benefit of the doubt. While the acquittal was secured on evidentiary grounds, the court also noted that Dhani Ram is now about 100 years who has spent nearly 40 years on bail under the shadow of a pending appeal....