On Wednesday, July 19, Patna High Court acquitted Rocky Yadav, the son of former JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi, and two others convicted in 2017 for murdering an 18-year-old boy named Aditya Sachdeva in a road rage incident in 2016.
A high court bench comprising Justice AM Badar and Justice Harish Kumar on Wednesday allowed the accused Rakesh Ranjan Yadav alias Rocky, Rajiv Kumar alias Teni Yadav, and Rajesh Kumar the ‘benefit of doubt’.
“Benefit of doubt as the prosecution has failed to establish their guilt by adducing clear, cogent, trustworthy and clinching evidence. All of the appellants are acquitted of the charges levelled against them, which the learned trial court found to be proved against them. They be set at liberty forthwith if not required in any other case,” the court ruled.
Aditya Sachdeva murder
On May 7, 2016, Rocky Yadav was returning to Gaya from Bodhgaya in an SUV with his bodyguard Rajesh Kumar when the incident occurred. Rocky got into a heated verbal confrontation with the people inside of a Swift Dzire car including victim Aditya Sachdeva and his four friends near Gaya’s Rampur police station for allegedly refusing to let him pass. Following this, Rocky Yadav overtook the Swift Dzire car and stopped it, which sparked an argument between Aditya and his friends and Rocky Yadav. Rocky following the outbreak shot Aditya Sachdeva with his licensed Beretta gun in a fit of rage.
Accused Rocky Yadav was apprehended three days after the crime, from his father’s mixer plant in Bodhgaya by Gaya police, and a Beretta gun registered in his name and used to perpetrate the crime was confiscated. A Gaya court then sentenced him to 14 days in judicial custody. Later, Rocky Yadav’s bodyguard Rajesh Kumar and his father, Bindeshwari Prasad alias Bindi Yadav, were all arrested by the police.
Friends and police turned hostile
As the case progressed, several of Sachdeva’s friends turned hostile during court appearances, which changed the course of the case. Aditya’s friends Ayush Agrawal, Ankit, Nasser Hussain, and Mohammed Kaifi took a u-turn and refused to testify that it was Rocky Yadav who shot Aditya dead saying that it was dark when the incident transpired and they could not see clearly if it was Rocky Yadav who fired the bullet.
On the day of the incident, Aditya’s friend Nasser Hussain was driving the car and overtook Rocky Yadav’s car. Nasser Hussain, an eye witness in the case backtracked from his original statement indicting Rocky Yadav. It is reported that Hussain’s father Hasnu Miyan had close ties with Rocky’s father Bindi Yadav.
Sunil Kumar, a police constable, became hostile in December 2016 after making an earlier testimony in which he said he observed Bindeshwari Prasad Yadav helping his son Rocky in escaping after the crime.
Days later, Tej Narain Singh Yadav, a police constable posted at MLC Manorama Devi’s AP Colony residence, retracted his prior statement in which he stated that on the evening of May 7, he saw Rocky Yadav very disturbed at his residence and that his father Bindi Yadav facilitated his escape. However, in court, the constable categorically denied making any such statement.
Rocky Yadav and Teni Yadav’s conviction in 2017
A Gaya district court convicted Rakesh Ranjan Yadav aka Rocky Yadav and two others to life in jail in September 2016 for the murder of class XII student Aditya Sachdeva. Bindeshwari Prasad Yadav aka Bindi Yadav, a former Gaya zilla councillor, was sentenced to five years in prison for harboring the perpetrator and providing false information to the court. Bindi Yadav died due to Covid in July 2020.
Rocky is the son of former JD(U) MLC Manorama Devi, who was ousted from the party as the matter sparked outrage. Rocky and three others were found guilty by the court on the basis of the findings of the recovery of the firearm used in the crime and subsequent findings of the forensic team, with Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADJ) Sachchidanand Singh pronouncing the verdict in the high-profile case.
Rocky, a member of the Delhi Rifle Club, had obtained the pistol’s permit through a sports quota. The address on the license was from the Maoist-affected Chatra area of Jharkhand. The prosecution claimed that the licenced pistol confiscated from Rocky, along with 19 live cartridges, was used in the murder of Aditya.
The court, however, noted that FSL expert Dilip Kumar failed to provide any material to back up his assertion that retrieved two deformed bullets were fired from the Beretta pistol, which was seized from the Hot Mixed Plant of Bodh Gaya,” the division bench stated overturning the conviction and allowed the Rocky Yadav and others to walk free.
