Allahabad High Court acquits Talwars in Aarushi murder case

Aarushi's parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, had appealed a 2013 CBI court verdict that convicted them in the murder of their daughter and their domestic help, Hemraj.

New Delhi: Nupur and Rajesh Talwar did not murder their daughter Aarushi Talwar, the Allahabad High Court ruled on Thursday. The court said the Talwars could not be convicted as the CBI had not proved beyond doubt that they had murdered their daughter and their domestic help, Hemraj. 

A division bench of the court comprising justices BK Narayana and AK Mishra upheld the Talwars' appeal against the CBI court order sentencing them to life imprisonment on November 26, 2013.

"No chain of evidence has been found. The CBI failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Talwars killed Aarushi. The Talwar couple cannot be convicted on the basis of mere suspicion. They must be given the benefit of doubt," the bench said. 

As per a report, following the court acquittal, the Talwar couple can be released from the Ghaziabad's Dasna jail on Friday, where they have been lodged since 2013. 

Reacting to the court's verdict, the CBI said that it will study high court order in Aarushi case and decide the future course of action. 

The verdict ends a nine-year ordeal of the parents who were found guilty by a CBI court of murdering 14-year-old Aarushi in a fit of rage because they suspected her of having an affair with Hemraj.

On May 16, 2008, 14-year-old Aarushi was found murdered in her bedroom in the flat in Noida's Jal Vayu Vihar - her throat slit with surgical precision. It was initially suspected that Hemraj had killed Aarushi. But the case took a shocking turn when Hemraj's body was found two days later from the rooftop of the same apartment building.

The suspicion then shifted to the Talwars, both of whom are dentists. Police theorised that Rajesh Talwar had acted on impulse after finding Arushi and Hemraj in an "objectionable" position. The Talwars and their friends alleged that the blame was being shifted to Aarushi's parents to cover up a botched investigation.

The case was transferred from the Uttar Pradesh Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which exonerated the parents and placed the suspicion on the Talwars' assistant Krishna and two others. In 2009, the CBI handed over the probe to a new team, which recommended closing the case due to critical gaps in the initial investigation.