HC acquits two diamond traders in 2011 kidnapping, killing of angadiya

The court gave the benefit of doubt to the two accused, Naresh Golani and Dharmesh Patel

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Monday acquitted two diamond traders who were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping and murdering an angadiya (informal banking/ courier agent) in November 2011 after robbing diamonds worth ₹1 crore from him.

HC acquits two diamond traders in 2011 kidnapping, killing of angadiya

The court gave the benefit of doubt to the two accused, Naresh Golani and Dharmesh Patel, after noticing that the prosecution had failed to prove the complete chain of circumstances.

“An analysis of the evidence and material on record shows that the prosecution has failed to prove the incriminating circumstances beyond reasonable doubt and the chain of circumstances is consequently left incomplete,” the division bench of justices Manish Pitale and Manjusha Deshpande said while acquitting Golani and Patel.

According to the prosecution, the angadiya, Hardik Mordiya, had left his employer Parth Mehta’s office in the Opera House market on November 17, 2011 to deliver four packets of diamonds. When he did not reach home till late at night, his brother Bipin called Mehta, but they could not locate Hardik in the diamond market. A missing report was subsequently registered at the DB Marg police station.

Two days later, Bipin received a call from the Panchgani police in Satara district, saying they had found a dead body in the bushes along Panchgani Road, and were contacting him based on the identity card found on the victim.

The DB Marg police, which investigated the case, claimed that Golani and Patel had kidnapped the victim in Golani’s car, robbed him of a packet containing the diamonds, brutally killed him and dumped his body in the bushes. The police claimed that stolen diamonds worth around ₹72 lakh were recovered from Patel’s house and arrested him and Golani.

HT graphic

To prove their case against the duo, the police examined 43 witnesses. On June 27, 2019, the sessions court convicted both of them and sentenced them to life imprisonment based on circumstantial evidence.

Golani and Patel then approached the high court, challenging their conviction and the life terms awarded to them.

On Monday, the high court struck down their convictions and acquitted them both. The court held that the prosecution had failed to prove the circumstances beyond reasonable doubt, especially pertaining to when the accused and victims were last seen together, recovery of the knife used to commit the crime, and the recovery of the diamonds worth ₹72 lakh from Patel’s house.

As regards the last seen theory, the court said there was no explanation of the long gap between when Hardik Mordiya was last seen with the accused and the recovery of his body. The knife used to commit the crime was found lying along a busy road and thus could not be termed as a recovery to support the hypothesis of guilt, the court said. The recovery of stolen diamonds was also under suspicion, as the recovered gems were never produced before the trial court, the court noted, and acquitted the accused duo.