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India
The Supreme Court has acquitted a man who spent over two decades in prison for a crime that was never conclusively proven. Md Bani Alam Mazid, accused of kidnapping and murdering a 16-year-old girl in 2003, was finally released on February 24, 2025, after a long 21-year legal battle.
Mazid was arrested in August 2003 on charges of abducting and killing a minor girl. A sessions court in Kamrup convicted him in 2007 and sentenced him to life in prison. His appeal was dismissed by the Gauhati High Court in 2010, forcing him to approach the Supreme Court in 2011.
However, his case remained pending for years. When his appeal was first heard in August 2011, the Supreme Court asked him to reapply for bail after two years. Even after the court ordered a faster trial in 2017, his bail pleas were repeatedly rejected.
In 2018, he was granted temporary bail for eight weeks to care for his sick mother, but he had to return to prison. It wasn’t until March 2024 that arguments in his case concluded. Yet, it took the Supreme Court nearly 11 months to deliver its verdict.
Supreme Court Orders Release
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove Mazid’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, leading to his acquittal. The court pointed out several flaws in the case:
- The high court had already dismissed Mazid’s alleged extra-judicial confessions, breaking a crucial link in the prosecution’s argument.
- Witness statements were inconsistent, and the delay between the victim’s disappearance and the discovery of her body further weakened the case.
- The court noted that Mazid and the victim were in a relationship, and his family had assured her father they would marry. There was no evidence of sexual assault or financial motive.
“The prosecution failed to prove each of the circumstances against the appellant. The courts below were not justified in convicting him,” the bench stated.
Advocates Azim H Laskar and Abhijit Sengupta represented Mazid throughout his legal struggle.
Judicial Delays Under Scrutiny
Mazid’s case highlights the alarming backlog in India’s judiciary. According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), over 55% of criminal cases in the Supreme Court have been pending for more than a year. The court is currently handling 81,274 pending cases.
Spending more than 20 years in jail for a crime the prosecution couldn’t prove has raised serious concerns about India’s justice system. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that even a single day of wrongful imprisonment is unacceptable.
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