Additional Sessions Judge S M Shembole acquitted — Stephen and Vijayan Fernandes, both residents of Vikhroli — after defence lawyer Rajendra Javanjal proved in the court that the two were illegally detained by the police well before their arrest in the case. The Santacruz police had claimed that they had arrested the two on April 15, 2008, while driving a stolen Innova car.

According to the prosecution, the two had entered the vehicle with pointed guns on April 2 last year and drove it till Vikhroli where they dropped the owner, Jalshankar Shukla, before fleeing in the car with Rs 7,000 and a mobile phone.

The defence lawyer argued in court that the two were falsely implicated in the case and the property cell of the Mumbai police had detained them before they were shown to be arrested by the Santacruz police. Stephen’s wife Poornima told the court that she had taken food for her husband to the property cell from April 6 to April 14, 2008, and that she had also made entries in the log book maintained at the department’s security post.