About the Author
Ann .V .Varghese is a sixth semester student at Government Law College, Ernakulam. She is also serving as convenor of LJRF, CWC.
FACTS
The complainant in this case is the father of the deceased in the present case who was kidnapped for ransom. He was strangulated the same day and the body was burnt to destroy evidence. The complainant filed a ‘missing person report’ on the same day itself, after which he received ransom calls from different persons seeking ransom. The investigation lead to discovery of belongings from A-1 and A-2 who are the appellants in this case at hand as well as other proofs which disclose their involvement. The body could not be however identified though its location had been disclosed by the accused. Upon investigation, it was found that another police station, in which jurisdiction the nala fell, had recovered a half-burned dead body the next day of abduction. This was identified by the father, to be that of the deceased. The trial court convicted the three accused persons for the commission of offence under S.302, 364A, 201, read with S.120B IPC. A-1 and A-2 were also convicted under S.411, with A-1 additionally being
convicted for offences punishable under S.420, 468 and 471 IPC. They were sentenced to life imprisonment for the remainder of their natural life, and an additional condition was imposed on A-1 and A-2 – that they would not be entitled to any parole, remission, or furlough, before completing 30 years of imprisonment. They were also sentenced to each pay ₹ 2,10,000 as fine, and ₹ 4,00,000 as compensation to the victim’s family. The High Court, by its common
impugned judgment, on an appreciation of the facts at hand, acquitted A-3 of all charges; and acquitted the present appellants only for offence under S.411, but affirmed their conviction for other offences, as well as the corresponding sentence imposed by the trial court. The appellants thus approached the Supreme Court, challenging both the conviction and sentence.
ISSUE
The issue at hand was to consider the correctness of the sentence imposed on the accused/appellants by the trial court fixed term sentence of 30 years, without remission, by the trial court, which was affirmed by the impugned judgment passed by the Delhi High Court.
CONTENTIONS OF APPELLANT
The appellants structured their arguments centred heavily upon the court’s decision in Union of India v. Sriharan @ Murugan & Ors. which held that it was outside the jurisdiction of the
trial court, to provide a specific term punishment or till the end of ordinary life, as an alternative to the death penalty and that this aspect was reason enough to set aside the erroneous decision.
Reliance was placed on S.386(b)(i), (ii) and (iii) while urging that the High Court had, while dismissing the appeal on conviction, also rejected the arguments made on sentencing, without proper consideration.
The fact that the appellants had no criminal antecedents and evidence supporting good and normal social behaviour, reformation, and possibility of reintegration into society were also strongly put forth. The importance of the theory of reformation through punishment and special category of sentence for serious crimes where death sentence is substituted with life imprisonment for a fixed number of years were also a moot point for the appellants.
The following cases were also referred to:
Rajendra Prahladrao Wasnik v. State of Maharashtra
Swamy Shraddananda v. State of Karnataka
Santosh Kumar Satishbhushan Bariyar v. State of Maharashtra
Raju Jagdish Paswan v. State of Maharashtra
Satish @ Sabbe v. State of UP
Mohd Firoz v. State of MP
CONTENTIONS OF RESPONDENT
The state’s argument was structured around the gruesome nature of the murder of a minor victim. It was argued that it was a clear case of was a cold-blooded murder. The act of abduction
committed in a clandestine manner and the thought process that guided the series of events, was executed with preplanning and premeditation. The appellants were also educated and belonged to well-to-do families. Thus, they were well aware and had full knowledge of their actions. This therefore fell within the gravest of grave category of cases. The VIMHANS report
which was submitted was a neutral report which could not be relied on as demonstrating ‘mitigating circumstances’ as it cannot speak to the mental state of the appellants, at the time of commission of the offences. It does not necessarily support any prospect of rehabilitation or reformation. The respondents heavily relied up Arvind Singh v. State of Maharashtra and Gauri
Shankar v. State of Punjab to emphasis its arguments.
JUDGEMENT
The judgement was analytical in nature with the court re-iterating the theory of mitigating and aggravating factors in the series of cases in the likes of Bachan Singh v. Union of India, Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, Santosh Kumar Satishbhushan Bariyar, Shankar Kisanrao Khade etc. The Court further examined the case of Union of India v. Sriharan @ Murugan &Ors to determine the appropriateness of imposing a punishment in serious crimes. The Hon’ble bench also examined the directions set down in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh to shed more light
in this regard. It held that wherever the prosecution is of the opinion that the crime an accused is convicted for, is so grave that death sentence is warranted, it should carry out the exercise of placing the materials for evaluation. If death sentence is not imposed, the HC can still evaluate, if the sentence is adequate, and wherever appropriate, impose a special or fixed term sentence, in the course of an appeal. In case the trial court has failed to carry out such exercise, the HC
has to call for such material while considering an appeal filed for enhancement of sentence.
In the present case, the court observed the shared commonalities of both the appellants namely; they were of young age at the time of offence, hail from educated backgrounds, and they
continue to enjoy the love and affection of their families, each of which have a good standing and strong ties within the communities they live in. It was also cognizant of the nature of crime,
presence of premeditation and young age of victim which contributed to the aggravating factors. Thus it was deemed to be appropriate to modify the sentence awarded to both appellants to a minimum term of 20 years’ actual imprisonment. The appeals were thus partly allowed.
