No Evidence, No Conviction: Man Cleared in Child Porn Case by Nagpur Court
Nagpur, India: A 29-year-old man was found not guilty by a special POCSO court in Nagpur after the judge said there wasn’t enough proper evidence against him.
Krushna Laxman Rajpethe, a driver from Wadgaon Kolhat in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad), had been accused of uploading child pornographic content on Facebook in 2020. He was charged under the IT Act and the POCSO Act.
The case started after the Maharashtra Cyber Cell got a tip in 2020 from an American organisation called the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which reported suspicious activity online.
A formal complaint was filed in April 2021 at Nagpur’s Cyber Police Station. During the trial, the prosecution presented six witnesses — five police officials and one independent witness.
However, the court found many issues in the case. Important evidence such as a CD, DVD, pen drive, and mobile data were either missing or not properly verified. The phone said to be used in the crime was taken from Rajpethe’s father, and police statements about the seizure did not match. Also, the independent witness said he had signed a blank paper and did not know what the document was about.
Judge R. P. Pande said the prosecution could not prove that Rajpethe had uploaded, stored, or even possessed any illegal content. The court ruled that the case against him had failed.
Rajpethe was acquitted under the Criminal Procedure Code. His bail was cancelled, and the court ordered that his mobile phone be returned after the appeal period. Other seized items will be destroyed.
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