What Led the Supreme Court to Use the ‘Rarest of Rare’ Doctrine to Acquit Two Men Convicted of Raping and Murdering a Minor Girl

Key Points:

The Supreme Court has acquitted two men who were involved in the rape and murder of a minor girl in the 2014 Uttarakhand POCSO case on 10 September 2025. One of the two men, Akhtar Ali, had been given the death penalty, while the other, Prem Pal Verma, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

The three-judge bench composed of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol, and Sandeep Mehta set aside the convictions ruled by the Uttarakhand High Court in 2019. The judges stated that the evidence presented before the court was a chain of broken pieces with several loopholes. The ruling by the Supreme Court invoked the “rarest of the rare” doctrine, under which capital punishment can be revoked in certain circumstances.

What is the Case ?

The bench ruled that if the death penalty is imposed in a hasty manner, it risks a “miscarriage of justice.” The 2014 Uttarakhand POCSO case was about a minor girl who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in Kathgodam, Uttarakhand.

The girl was attending a wedding and was playing with other kids near a pandal when she was kidnapped on November 20, 2014. The defence argued that the case presented by the prosecution had persisting loopholes. Some of the evidence appeared tailor-made to tie the prime accused to the crime without reliable backing.

See Also: Father Alleges Murder by Ex-MLA, Police Refuses to File FIR

Under the Scope: 2014 Uttarakhand POCSO Case

The victim’s father filed a missing person report the next day, on November 21, 2014. After four days, a relative of the girl informed the police that her body was lying in the Gaula River near a forest area. According to the post-mortem report by PW-7, Dr. C.P. Bhaisora, the victim died from shock and haemorrhage caused by severe injuries to her vaginal and preanal regions.

Police held the accused under Section 365 (kidnapping), along with charges of rape, murder, and relevant sections of the POCSO Act 2012. The prosecution’s case mainly relied on Akhtar Ali’s extra-judicial confession—when a person confesses to a crime without a judge or magistrate present.

The court discovered that dumper driver Akhtar Ali had been detained by police unofficially, which made his confession unreliable. The second accused, Prem Pal Verma, was detained and sentenced to seven years in prison for allegedly buying toffees and chocolates near the site of the kidnapping.

The Supreme Court bench acquitted Akhtar Ali and Prem Pal Verma due to the weak chain of disconnected evidence. The judges ruled that the DNA report in the case was not reliable. According to the bench, the forensic evidence could not be used because the person who conducted the DNA analysis, Dr. Manoj Kumar Agarwal, had a degree in Botany, not in human DNA profiling.

“The very qualifications of a witness as a DNA expert are under grave doubt,” the bench stated. On September 10, 2025, the court ruled that the DNA report lacked reliability. The judges also raised concerns of possible tampering with the evidence, suggesting that Ali’s involvement may have been an orchestrated attempt to link him directly to the case.

Medical jurists stated that the cause of death was severe blood loss due to her injuries. Therefore, the jacket she wore at the time should have had bloodstains. Instead, the forensic report showed no blood or semen on the jacket. Considering these factors, the bench ruled that the DNA report was unreliable. “The entire process of collection and examination of samples and the consequent matching of the DNA becomes suspicious and wholly unreliable,” the bench added.

The bench pointed out another loophole in the case: the omission of a key witness, the relative who discovered the girl’s body. Despite being a material witness, he was never examined in court. The bench questioned the fairness of the probe, noting this omission.

The judges also dismissed the “last seen theory” applied in the case. This theory assumes that the person last seen with the victim before death is presumed to be the culprit. The prosecution relied heavily on this argument, claiming the accused were in the area before the girl was kidnapped. To support this, they presented several witnesses.

However, the court noted that if these witnesses suspected the accused, they should have informed authorities earlier. The bench remarked, “Given that, by then, the body of the victim girl had already been recovered, the possibility of these witnesses being a product of subsequent padding cannot be ruled out.”

The Supreme Court declared the immediate release of Akhtar Ali and Prem Pal Verma. In its 86-page ruling, the bench concluded that the capital punishment was based only on circumstantial evidence. It stressed that the “rarest of rare” doctrine can only be applied when evidence is absolutely certain and there is no room for doubt. [Rh/VS]

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