Soni Satti
The Bombay High Court in Goa acquitted Pratima Naik, who was sentenced to life in jail by the Sessions Court for the double murder of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law in Vasco in 2015.
The High Court acquitted her of murder, poisoning, and theft in the double murder case, and quashed and overturned a South Goa sessions court order convicting her in 2017.
Justices M S Jawalkar and Dama Seshadri Naidu of the High Court’s division bench ordered that she be released immediately if she was not wanted for any other crime.
Counsel C A Ferreira and Prithvi Bandekar, an advocate under the Legal Aid Scheme, represented Naik.
In 2017, a South Goa Sessions Court sentenced her to life in jail for murdering her mother-in-law and sister-in-law after prescribing stupefying drugs to them.
According to the prosecution, she was the main suspect at the time and her brother-in-law assisted her, who eventually became an approver in the case.