After years of facing charge of instigating gangster Chhota Rajan for killing senior journalist J Dey due to alleged 'professional rivalry', former crime reporter Jigna Vora was today acquitted by a special court of all charges as it did not find any "trustworthy evidence" against her.
Vora, 44, broke down in the court when special MCOCA judge Sameer Adkar announced her acquittal. The court sentenced Rajan and eight others to life imprisonment for the sensational murder by some motorcycle-borne assailants in broad daylight in 2011 when Dey was on way back to his residence.
Police had suspected that the professional rivalry between Vora and Dey may have led her to get involved in the 2011 killing at Powai in Mumbai.
Vora was Deputy Chief of Bureau of The Asian Age when Dey was killed and was arrested in November 2011. She was jailed under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) on charges of supplying licence plate number of the motorcycle and address of Dey to gangster Rajan.
Vora was granted bail in July 2012 on grounds that she has a child to look after as a single parent and that her detention was not required in the absence of any strong argument from the prosecution for denying her the relief.
The special MCOCA court, however, acquitted her of all charges in the murder case, saying there did not exist any "trustworthy evidence" against her.
The CBI had claimed in the chargesheet that Vora had complained against Dey to Rajan and had provided photographs of Dey, his motorcycle number etc to help the gangster identify the senior journalist, who was working with the Mid-Day tabloid at that time.
Judge Adkar held that the evidence on record did not prove any of the charges against Vora.
"As far as the accused Jigna Vora is concerned, though the role attributed to her is that she instigated the accused Chhota Rajan to commit the murder of J Dey and that it was she who gave details such as his photograph and the registration number of his motorcycle to Rajan for the purposes of his identification by the other accused, there is no trustworthy evidence against her," Judge Adkar said in his judgement.
"In fact, the learned special public prosecutor did not address arguments against Vora with much force. Perhaps, he was also aware about the quality of the evidence against her," the judge noted.
The court also observed that even in the various extra-judicial confessions that Rajan made, he nowhere stated that he got Dey murdered because of the instigation by Vora or anybody else.
"This court has also independently analysed the evidences, who are the relevant witnesses with respect to charges against the accused Vora. However, there is nothing in their evidence to suggest that she instigated Rajan to commit the murder of Dey or that she had any other role in this offence.
"Even the recovery of various mobile phones and the SIM cards of Vora and the relevant CDRs (Call Detail Records) failed to connect Vora with the offence in question. Hence, Jigna Vora has to be acquitted of all the charges against her," the order said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)