Overview

• Additional Sessions Judge Satyanarayan R Navander last week cleared Vishal Manohar Diwar, Vishal Rahul Jonjal, Vishal Pandurang Gaikwad and Shirish Dhondiram Chikhalkar of charges under IPC Sections 307 and 504.
• A detailed order made available on Thursday cited hostile eyewitnesses, contradictions between complainant Sopan (Nagorao) Kamble and his wife Jayshree, and an absence of documented injuries.
• The court noted a forensic finding of kerosene on Kamble’s seized clothes but emphasized that no burnt matchstick was recovered and no ignition attempt was proven.
• The case stemmed from an internal dispute over a proposed rasta roko after a March 6, 2017 Azad Maidan protest that demanded a CBI probe into the killing of Dr. Krishna Kirwale.
• Finding the possibility of false implication due to political rivalry, the court applied the benefit-of-doubt principle; one report says the four earlier spent about six months in jail before bail.