Maharashtra: Lawyer helps tribal couple escape lifetime in jail

Ganesh Valvi and Sakhubai were reunited with their son last week. They are staying with a relative in Kare village, Palghar, now. Pic/Hanif Patel

Finding an advocate who studied their case and found the loopholes in the prosecution's arguments set a tribal couple free from a lifetime in jail. The couple was recently acquitted of murder charges by the Bombay High Court and reunited with their seven-year-old son. Ganesh Valvi, 40, and his wife, Sakhubai were accused of murdering his stepbrother, Rajaram Bambre, after the man was found dead on a hill in a field in Chambharshet Bhausarpada village of Jawhar taluka in Palghar on May 12, 2014.

Advocate Swapnil Ovalekar

There were injuries on Bambre's face, chest, back, and thighs and on the complaint of his wife, Manjubai - who alleged that the couple got him drunk, killed him due to personal rivalry and a property dispute and threw his body in the field - Jawhar police registered a case against them. During the trial at the Sessions Court, the prosecution examined seven witnesses and on the basis of circumstantial evidence, the couple was convicted. The couple wanted to appeal in the high court but did not have enough money. Eventually, they crossed paths with advocate Swapnil Ovalekar, who fought their case pro bono.

Arguments made in appeal
The prosecution had based its case on an extrajudicial confession Sakhubai made to a relative under the influence of alcohol, saying that she and her husband killed Bambre over a property dispute. This relative was made a witness in the case. Ovalekar studied the case and contested the conviction over four years.

"Bambre's post-mortem report said that the cause of death was his spleen rupturing. However, there were no corresponding injuries on the body. Had he really been hit by a stone, as the prosecution claimed, there'd have been rib fractures. Secondly, it was claimed that the dispute was over a property that Bambre's father owned.

However, Bambre's father had no property in his name, so the question of a dispute did not arise. Hence, the motive ceased to exist and the extra-judicial confession, too, became invalid," Ovalekar told mid-day. The high court passed the acquittal order on December 8, 2020, and the couple was released from Nashik Central Jail on December 15.

"Their son, who was one-year-old when they were jailed six years ago, stayed with Sakhubai for a few years. Later he was shifted to the orphanage. They were reunited on January 8," Ovalekar said.

"It was a proud moment for me when the innocent couple got out of jail. The case was not of murder, but of natural death, as Bambre was a habitual drinker and had been in poor health," Ovalekar added.