Tribal MBBS student spends 13 years in jail accused of murder; exonerated by MP High Court

In 2008, a young tribal man in Madhya Pradesh, on the cusp of completing his MBBS degree, was arrested on charges that he had killed his girlfriend. Chandresh Marskole, a student of Bhopal-based Gandhi Medical College, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court on July 31, 2009, after being found guilty of the alleged murder. 

Marskole had filed an appeal against the session court's decision in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh. A division bench of the High Court dismissed the case against him and stated that it was a "sordid saga of manipulative and preconceived investigation followed by a malicious prosecution" that threw the young man's life into disarray, reported news agency PTI. They have set aside his conviction, ordered him to be released forthwith and directed the Madhya Pradesh government to pay him a compensation of Rs 42 lakh for the 13 years he spent behind bars. 

The court also said that there were no eyewitnesses to the murder and that the prosecution had built the case on "circumstantial evidence". "The counsel for the appellant has argued that the case against the Marskole is a trumped-up case on account of any previous enmity with PW1 (prosecution witness Dr Hemant Verma), arising from campus politics and that PW1, using his influence with the then Bhopal Inspector General of Police Shailendra Shrivastava, was the main culprit who had committed the murder of the deceased and with the tacit complicity of the police, falsely implicated the appellant," it said. 

"The appellant in this case, a Gond tribal, who with much difficulty, thanks to the provision for affirmative action in the Constitution, made it to a state-run medical college and was in the fourth (final) year of MBBS and was on the verge of becoming a full-fledged doctor, a support for his family and a source of inspiration for his community," it said. 

The court has awarded Marskole Rs 42 lakh in compensation and has ordered the MP government to pay it within 90 days from the date of the order, at an interest of nine per cent per annum till the date of payment.