Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
Why Allahabad High Court is seeking UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Intervention?: In a scathing reality check for the Uttar Pradesh administration, the Allahabad High Court has revealed a systemic crisis: individuals accused of heinous crimes like rape and murder are walking out on bail because the state’s Forensic Science Laboratories (FSLs) lack the basic technology to nail them.
While granting bail to an accused man on May 21, Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal stated that the court was doing so “with a heavy heart and great pain,” placing the blame squarely on the state government’s shoulders.
Here is an analysis of the court’s findings, the specific case that triggered the outcry, and the broader crisis plaguing Uttar Pradesh’s criminal justice system.
The Core Crisis: The DNA Anomaly
The High Court flagged a recurring, dangerous pattern in cases involving the rape and murder of women across Uttar Pradesh:
The Process: Investigating officers routinely collect critical biological evidence, such as vaginal swabs from the victim and DNA samples from the accused, and send them to state FSLs.
The Breakdown: In a vast majority of these high-stakes cases, the FSL reports come back inconclusive.
The Reason: Because of outdated machinery and incomplete infrastructure, the labs fail to generate a complete DNA profile.
The Legal Fallout: When a lab fails to cleanly match or isolate DNA due to technical failure, the report effectively serves as a “clean chit” for the defense. Courts are legally constrained to grant bail due to the resulting lack of proper, conclusive scientific evidence.
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Case Study: Manoj v. State of UP
The systemic issue took center stage during the bail hearing of a man named Manoj, who was arrested in November 2025 for the alleged rape and murder of a woman found dead near a river.
The Prosecution’s Case
The victim went missing and was later found dead.
Circumstantial evidence placed the accused at the scene: a witness allegedly saw Manoj walking toward the exact location by the river where the body was recovered.
The Defense’s Argument
Manoj’s counsel presented the official FSL report as definitive proof of innocence.
The report stated that the DNA found on the victim did not match the applicant—solely because the lab was unable to generate a sufficient DNA profile.
The Court’s Ruling
The High Court admitted that while the offense was undeniably heinous, it could not keep the accused in custody without solid medical backing. The court noted that the “clean chit” was likely a product of a failing laboratory system rather than actual innocence, calling it the “biggest anomaly in investigation.”
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“No One to Blame Except the Uttar Pradesh Government”
Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal, Allahabad High Court.
The Bench did not mince words regarding who is responsible for this failure in public safety and justice administration.
The Court highlighted that the Director of the UP FSL had recently admitted that most forensic labs in the state are crippled by acute staff shortages and severe infrastructure deficiencies.
The judgment noted that the state government “has many other issues to consider, apart from the issue of providing basic infrastructure to FSL,” pointing to a severe misplacement of administrative priorities.
High Court Demands Action from UP CM Yogi Adityanath
To ensure the message reaches the highest levels of governance, the Allahabad High Court took the unusual step of directing a copy of its order to be sent directly to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath through the Chief Secretary.
The Court expects immediate state intervention to upgrade the judicial pipeline by:
Procuring high-end, modern forensic machinery.
Aggressively filling vacancies to resolve acute staff shortages at FSLs.
The Bottom Line: A criminal justice system is only as strong as its evidence. Until Uttar Pradesh modernizes its forensic infrastructure, the courts warn that technical failures will continue to compromise critical investigations, leaving victims without justice and the public exposed to risk.
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