HC acquits woman who tried to shield her rapist-murderer ‘Raja beta’

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Holding that rigorous imprisonment till natural death without remission was proportionate to the crime, the bench observed that the murder was not a premeditated act but “because of panic to destroy the evidence of rape”.

The girl was five years, seven months and 14 days old when she was raped and murdered on May 31, 2018 by the convict, an employee of her father who ran a small tent installation business. The girl’s father and the convict had gone to install a tent a short distance away from. The convict went to his employer’s to get lunch for the victim’s father. While returning, the girl accompanied him. As the girl’s father took a nap after lunch, the convict took the girl to his residence, where he raped her and then stabbed her multiple times with a kitchen knife and hid the body in a container where his mother used to store flour. His mother was not at home that time.

The judges noted that the victim’s age, the fact of rape and her murder were undisputed, backed by her birth certificate and the postmortem report. The postmortem recorded tears to the clitoris and hymen and multiple stab wounds, including one that pierced her liver. The doctor who conducted the examination stated on oath that “the possibility of subjecting the deceased to rape, sexual assault cannot be ruled out, as tearing was present on her hymen”.

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The court also found the chain of circumstances complete: villagers saw the convict taking the girl by the hand towards his house, he gave a false explanation to the father that he had dropped her at “the plant”, and the child’s body was recovered from a drum inside the compound of his house. Bloodstains on the drum and a nearby stone matched the victim’s DNA.

While DNA from the victim was not found on the convict’s Virender’s clothes and semen could not be detected on swabs or her clothing, the bench held that these gaps were not fatal, given the strength of other evidence.

In its December 23 verdict, the court, while opining that “murder was because of panic to destroy evidence of rape and not a premeditated act”, held that “the convict’s life should not be taken away by the judicial process, and instead, to save the children and females, he can be incapacitated by imposing a suitable sentence”.

In deciding against the death penalty, the bench surveyed several Supreme Court rulings in similar child rape-murder cases where capital punishment was commuted. It stressed that courts must consider the probability of reform and rehabilitation, that life imprisonment is the rule and death sentence the exception. The court said any sentence to be proportionate must be stable and balanced like a table, and for any table to be stable, all its legs must be comparable. “Thus, the courts, while awarding a sentence, are under an obligation to consider the (a) crime, (b) victim, (c) criminal and his family, and (d) society and the state”.

It said the convict has no criminal antecedents, and his conduct in prison is not violative, which makes reformation possible. “To save the other kids and females, the convict must stay inside the four walls of the prison until he is closer to the sunset of his virility…we are convinced to impose a sentence of 30 years, without remission, which, in the peculiar facts and circumstances, would be justified and would also safeguard the other girls on the street from the pervertedness of the convict,” read the verdict.

On the mother’s role, the court accepted that she resisted the search and switched off the electricity when villagers tried to enter the house. However, it rejected her alleged disclosure statement to police as inadmissible and found no proof of active participation in the crime or intent to conceal evidence.

Strikingly, the judges remarked on her conduct after discovering what her son had done. “Unfortunately, in this part of India, family members, especially mothers, often have such blind love for their precious sons that, no matter how imperfect or villainous they might be, they are still regarded as Raja Betas,” the bench observed.

The court described this as a reflection of a deeply embedded patriarchal mindset. It added that the mother “prioritized shielding her son instead of informing the police or seeking justice for the girl” after discovering the crime by her “Raja-beta”. Yet the judges emphasised: “Her only fault is that she was trying to protect her Raja-beta, for which she cannot be punished under the Indian Penal Code.” Her love for her son, they wrote, “overrode her sense of justice”.