Rajasthan High Court Acquits Man Wrongfully Jailed for 12 Years in Wife’s Murder Case

The Rajasthan High Court has acquitted Iqbal, a man who spent 12 years in prison for a wrongful conviction in his wife’s murder case. Justices Pankaj Bhandari and Bhuvan Goyal, while accepting Iqbal’s appeal, ordered the state government to compensate him with Rs 25 lakhs within three months and canceled the lower court’s order from May 11, 2016, which had sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Iqbal’s lawyers, Rajesh Goswami and Nikhil Sharma argued that despite his wife’s death from burns on May 13, 2011, the police had falsely accused him of her murder. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced by Jaipur’s Special Court for Women Harassment Cases. The lower court’s failure to consider the testimony of the victim’s 6-year-old son and the omission to question the doctor who treated Iqbal’s wife was highlighted by Nikhil Sharma, one of Iqbal’s lawyers.