Bombay HC commutes death sentence of man to 25-year jail term

The bench said there was no doubt that the act of the man was “brutal,” but it was not a case of “planned act.” It went on to note, “Finding the child sitting alone that day, he seems to have taken her to the remote place. His background shows that his wife has left his company and at the time of incident, he was of 35 years of age and admittedly had no criminal record till then,” the HC noted.

The bench however said he was not entitled to be enlarged after 14-year of imprisonment as the “gravity of the offence is also definitely enormous” and there was “betrayal of trust reposed by the small child who addressed him as her uncle.”

A division bench of Justice Vibha V Kankanwadi and Justice Abhay S Waghwase passed the judgment in the death confirmation plea by the state government along with an appeal filed by the convict challenging the March 2021 judgment of special judge sentencing him to death.

The bench noted, “Afternoon of January 20, 2021 turned out to be the darkest of all times and also the last for the little soul who was “unmindful of the outrageous and perverse intentions of her so-called ‘uncle’”.

The prosecution through Additional Public Prosecutor R V Dasalkar claimed that it was a “classic illustration of how blatant and patent breach of trust can be committed by a person who was like a guardian to a child.

The prosecution said that as per FIR, on the date of incident, the informant/complainant father along with mother of the child and her grandmother had gone for daily agricultural activities in their own field. The accused was engaged by the family for herding buffaloes on yearly basis and was well acquainted with the family, including the six-year-old victim.

During the afternoon, the parents took the victim to their field on her insistence. Around 2:15 pm, the convict, who was to take buffaloes for grazing, saw her coming back home. The victim ran towards him and greeted him. At the said time, she was within the sight of her parents. After a short while, when buffaloes were seen entering the field, the father called the accused but neither him nor the victim were seen at the spot where she was earlier seen sitting and chatting with the accused.

Thereafter, the search was conducted by the victim’s father along with other villagers and during the twilight time, they came across footwear and the frock of the child and on further search, they came across the “ghastly scene.” They found the naked body of the child with several injuries and the accused was also spotted nearby. After he was questioned, he confessed of raping and killing the child, after which he was handed over to the police and FIR was filed.

The court accepted advocate Rebecca Gonsalves’s argument for accused that though DNA analysis report are positive, there are reasons to hold that the DNA profiling in the case is not completely free from doubt.

The bench while setting aside the death sentence and commuting it to non-remittable 25-year sentence observed, “Though this is one of the most unfortunate and grave offences, equally not a crime which gravitates only and only death penalty by holding it to be falling in the “rarest of the rare” category.”