Arjun Jani was arrested largely on suspicion and subjected to third-degree methods to extract a confession. The police failed to produce reliable evidence establishing his guilt.
The Supreme Court has acquitted an Odisha man who spent 22 years in prison after being wrongly convicted in a triple murder case, calling his prolonged incarceration a “collective failure” of the country’s criminal justice system.
The man, Arjun Jani, was convicted in the 2004 murder of three women in Odisha’s Nabarangpur district and spent more than two decades behind bars after being subjected to third-degree methods during interrogation.
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court expressed serious concern over the miscarriage of justice, observing that Jani had been deprived of his liberty for 22 years despite the absence of credible evidence against him.
The court said the loss of more than two decades of an individual’s freedom without sufficient proof reflected a “collective failure” of the criminal justice system.
The case dates back to 2004, when three women were murdered in Nabarangpur district. Jani was subsequently arrested after an alleged eyewitness claimed to have seen him at the crime scene.
According to the Supreme Court, the police arrested Jani largely on suspicion and allegedly subjected him to third-degree methods during interrogation to extract a confession. The purported confession became a key part of the prosecution’s case and eventually led to his conviction.
