New Delhi, Aug 7 A Delhi court has convicted a man for attempting to murder a tea vendor by repeatedly stabbing him after an argument over payment for a cup of tea, saying the victim's testimony and medical evidence conclusively established the attack.
Principal District and Sessions Judge Vijay Kumar Dahiya was hearing a case against Ajay alias Pankaj, who was accused of stabbing a tea vendor near Peeragarhi Chowk in west Delhi.
In an order dated August 3, the court said, "The shoddy investigation can be no grounds to throw the case of the prosecution out of the court, until and unless a grave prejudice has been caused to the accused by such shoddy investigation."
According to the prosecution, the accused visited Prince's tea stall on the night of August 9, 2022 and asked for tea. When the vendor demanded payment, an argument broke out, after which the accused allegedly attacked him with a button-operated knife and fled.
Prince suffered stab injuries to his stomach and left hand and was rushed to Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital.
Doctors found that his intestines had protruded from the wound and later declared the injuries grievous. The court noted that although the injured witness partly resiled from his earlier version during cross-examination and later claimed that the assailant had covered his face, he had unequivocally identified the accused and the weapon during his examination-in-chief.
Rejecting the defence argument that the prosecution case was weakened by the absence of independent public witnesses, the court said non-joining of public witnesses was not fatal when the testimony of the injured witness was otherwise reliable and corroborated by medical and forensic evidence.
The court also relied on forensic evidence showing that blood found on the recovered knife matched the DNA profile of the injured victim. The court scheduled the hearing on the quantum of the sentence for a later date.
Observing that the accused inflicted repeated stab injuries on a vital part of the body and that the victim's testimony carried greater evidentiary value than that of an injured witness, the court held that the prosecution had proved the case beyond reasonable doubt.
