Badaun sisters case: Court verdict on September 18
The families of the victims maintain that the girls were raped and hanged
Badaun: A court will pronounce its verdict on September 18 in the infamous May 2014 Badaun murder case of two cousin sisters.
The final arguments of CBI and petitioner counsels were completed on the closure report in the case on Monday. Additional district and sessions judge of POCSO court Virendra Kumar Pandey, who is hearing the case, will now pronounce his judgement on September 18, petitioner's counsel Gyan Singh Shakya said.
On the direction of the Allahabad high court, the CBI last month had provided copies of all documentary evidence to the kin of the two sisters, whose bodies were found hanging from a tree.
Final arguments of both the parties were today held based on these evidence. The families of the dead girls, who were first cousins, had contested the CBI's claim that the two had committed suicide and maintained that the girls were raped and hanged.
The CBI in its December 11 closure report submitted in Badaun's POCSO court said the girls committed suicide and were neither raped nor murdered.
The agency said the girls took the extreme step "ashamed that the relationship of the elder sister with Pappu Yadav, one of the men earlier accused in the case, had been exposed". It also said that the younger of the two sisters was also desirous of a relationship with the same man.
Both girls, the agency claimed, committed suicide in shame after being discovered by an uncle. Ever since the CBI filed its closure report in the case, the victims' kin have been seeking details of all case-related material that led to the conclusion that the deaths were suicide.
The Allahabad High Court had passed an order on July 22 asking the CBI to provide a copy of all documentary evidence in the next 30 days and the CBI had later called up the victims' kin and gave them the documents.