In a bizarre twist to a 14-year-old murder case of a woman, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has observed that a prosecution witness in the case might have been the actual murderer who possibly saved himself by falsely implicating the convict with the connivance of the then Inspector General (IG) of Bhopal Police.

The court also upheld the appeal of the tribal convict serving life imprisonment in the case and ordered his immediate release from jail along with a compensation of Rs 42 lakh from the state government.

A division bench of High Court comprising Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Sunita Yadav quashed the conviction of Chandresh Marskoley, a Gond tribal who was then a final-year MBBS student at Bhopal’s Gandhi Medical College, in the murder case of a woman on 20 August 2008. The court upheld Marskoley’s appeal against his conviction and subsequent rigorous life imprisonment sentenced by a Sessions Court at Bhopal on 31 July 2009.

‘The case reveals a sordid saga of manipulative and preconceived investigation followed by a malicious prosecution, where the police have investigated the case with the sole purpose of falsely implicating the appellant, Chandresh Marskoley and perhaps, deliberately protecting a prosecution witness, Dr Hemant Verma, who may have been the actual culprit,’ read the High Court order.

‘The counsel for the appellant (Marskoley) has argued that the case against Chandresh Marskoley is a trumped up case on account of previous enmity with prosecution witness Dr Hemant Verma, arising from campus politics and that the prosecution witness (Verma), using his influence with the then Bhopal Inspector General of Police Shailendra Shrivastava was the main culprit who had committed the murder, and with the tacit complicity of the police, falsely implicated the appellant’, the order said.

‘He (Marskoley) has spent over four thousand seven hundred and forty (4740) days in prison, first as an undertrial after being taken into custody on 20/09/08 (formal arrest was on 25/09/08) and thereafter as a convict’, the High Court order said.

‘And, in the facts and circumstances unique to this case, we award Marskoley a compensation of Rs 42,00,000/- (rupees forty two lakhs), which shall be paid by the State within ninety days from the date of this order’, it said.

‘Thereafter, it shall attract an interest of 9% per annum till the date of payment’, the court order said.

According to information, on 20 August 2008, Dr Hemant Verma, who was then a junior resident doctor at the Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal, had told police that Chandresh Marskoley had taken his car. Verma, who was a senior of Chandresh Marskoley, also said he suspected some wrongdoing.

Three days later, the body of a woman, Shruti, said to be the girl friend of Chandresh Marskoley, was found from the hills of MP’s famous tourist spot and hill station Pachmarhi.

On the basis of police investigations based on Hemant Verma’s statements, the Bhopal police arrested Marskoley on 25 September 2008, as the main accused.

After a trial lasting about 10 months, the trial court in Bhopal convicted Marskoley and sentenced him to life imprisonment on 31 July 2009.