On May 9—4,979 days after he was picked up from room number 61 in the B Block of Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal—Chandresh Marskole, 36, walked out of Bhopal Central Jail with a grocery bag full of personal belongings and some medical books. He was, finally, a free man.
A Gond tribal from Doke village in Waraseoni in Balaghat district, about 480km from Bhopal, Marskole had been in jail for close to 14 years on charges of murdering Shruti Hill, his alleged girlfriend. “He has been a victim of truth being sacrificed at the altar of a motivated and malicious investigation,” said the Madhya Pradesh High Court on May 4. It also directed the state government to pay him ₹42 lakh as compensation within 90 days.
The 78-page order written by judges Atul Sreedharan and Sunita Yadav is a significant documentation of jurisprudence. It has all the makings of a crime thriller novel, given the detailing of the investigative loopholes and legal aspects. But, unlike in a whodunnit, the real murderer is still unknown.
“From the material on record, we find the conduct of the police is malicious and the investigation has been done with the intention of securing the conviction of the appellant (Marskole) for an offence he did not commit and perhaps, for shielding [prosecution witness] Dr Hemant Verma, whose involvement in this offence is strongly suspected though there is no material to hold affirmatively against him as he was not on trial,” the court said.
THE CASE
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
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RECRUITERS SPEAK
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MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI
