Who failed Laadli? In toddler’s murder verdict, Punjab and Haryana High Court slams society for making men ‘perverts’

Highlighting the condition of women’s safety in society, the court asked, “What was Laadli’s fault? Was it that she was born in a region where a female, irrespective of her age, is seen by perverts as an object to satisfy lust? Probably, these males became perverts because no one taught them at home or in school to respect a female as an equal human being?”

The bench noted that in the perverted sight of the accused, Laadli remained nothing but an object, a means to satiate the accused’s insatiable lust.

The court, in its order on March 19, went on to say that Laadli’s only fault was that she was born female. 

Reflecting upon the systemic failure of society and educational institutions, the court said that what Laadli had to endure demonstrates a clear systemic failure of our institutions and communities at all levels.

‘What was Laadli’s fault?’

• Laadli’s only fault was that she was born female, and that was just a coincidence.
• Education is a multifaceted concept that continues, both explicitly through verbal instruction and implicitly through observation, in both formal school settings and the informal interactions of our daily environment.
• In fact, all the tell-tale signs of crime point out that she was raped and murdered because Laadli was a vulnerable female.
• In the perverted sight of the accused, moulded by the unfortunate conditioning of our own society, Laadli remained nothing but an object, a means to satiate the accused’s insatiable lust.
• Somewhere between teaching and learning, our curriculum and society failed to educate Bharatiya primitive males basic respect for life and recognition of the dignity of other genders, or simply how to live as civilised human beings, as in the present case, where the accused faltered in understanding the difference between a social animal and a beast.

Lack of sentencing guidelines: Order

• We do not have any sentencing guidelines to guide us. Even the judicial precedents on proportionality explicitly do not shed sufficient light to help tread without a crash.
• Clear guidelines are always better than an impulse, and it always fares better to be logical than to be intuitively vacillating.
• In the concept of the descending scale for awarding sentences, the median hypothetically starts at the age of consent.
• The baseline is the age of consent, with minima towards the age closest to the age of consent, and maxima towards the lowest age.
• The younger the victim, the higher the sentence; the more perpetrators, the more the sentence.
• In the case of a minor victim, when the age of the victim goes down, the sentence goes up.

• In the absence of distinct sentencing guidelines, the only process we can follow is the hydraulic force of the descending scale model, which would suggest that when the age of the victim goes down, the scale of sentence goes up, increasing its quantum.
• Thus, the descending scale model suggests that the younger the victim, the higher the sentence.
• A sentence on rape is likely to be more proportional by following the descending scale model for sentencing than relying on intuition.

Court’s reasoning for commutation

• Every life, whether young or old, of rich or poor, citizen or an alien, is equally precious and its loss is irreparable, and no one has the right to take it away except by following the due process of law with extreme care.
• Compulsive retribution by the state, without justifying due process of law, cannot immunise such acts, even when done in the name of the greater public good.
• To address the problem of how to keep other females safe from this rapist and murderer of Laadli, without taking away his life, it cannot be addressed by keeping the accused in custody unless he undergoes a specified period of incarceration.
• Without counting the remissions, and ensuring such period of custody extends well beyond his middle age, till the sunset of his virility, and after that, such a convict is not released from the prison unless there is an assurance that he is not likely to be in a physical capacity to rape and won’t have the motive to murder his victim.
• Maybe the accused realises the gravity of the offence he inflicted on the victim, repents it, and tries to reform himself.
• While calculating the sentence for the rape of minor victims, the most significant factors include the victim’s age, nature of injuries, cruelty, number of assailants, etc.
• We are clarifying that we are not discussing any scenario that depicts apparent prima facie consent but is a statutory rape because, at the time of consent, the victim was a minor, and we are also not discussing the rape of adult victims.

Convict’s guit beyond reasonable doubt: Order

•  An analysis of the evidence fully establishes that the chain of circumstances is complete, concrete, and leads to the sole inference of petitioner’s guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. 
• Coming to the part of the death sentences which were imposed by the Trial Court, considering the gravity of the offence and also by drawing a balance where aggravation had outweighed the mitigation. 
• After analysing the factual background in which the convict had committed the rape and murder of a helpless young girl, there does not appear to be any mitigating factor. 
• The trial court awarded the death sentence by holding that the case fell in the rarest of rare category, and the circumstances established the grave act of the accused, which had only one sentence, which was a death sentence. 
• The trial court also stated that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors, as both the accused and the victim belong to the same strata of society, and she had agreed to go with him to play, but he had raped and killed her.
• It appears that the subsequent act of murder was in the aftermath of panic to destroy the evidence of rape and not a premeditated act.  

The tragedy in Ludhiana

• The incident occurred on December 28, 2023, in Ludhiana.
• The victim’s maternal grandfather testified that the accused, the relative of a neighbour, purchased a chocolate for the child and took her away under the pretext of playing.
• When the child did not return, a search led to the discovery of her body concealed inside a bed box in the house where the accused had been residing.
• Medical examinations confirmed the victim had been sexually assaulted and throttled to death.
• The convict fled the scene and was apprehended by police in Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh.
• On August 1, 2024, the sessions court for cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act framed charges against the accused for the commission of offences punishable under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, but the petitioner did not plead guilty and claimed a trial.
• The trial court convicted the petitioner on the charges of committing rape and murder of Laadli and sentenced him to death under Section 6 of POCSO and also under Section 302 of IPC.
• The convict challenged his conviction in the high court.
• Legal aid counsel, advocate Arshdeep Singh Cheema, represented the convict in the high court.

Analysis and evidence

• Last seen theory: The court relied on the statement of the grandfather which established that the convict was the last person seen with the child before her death.
• Scientific evidence: The court highlighted that DNA profiling confirmed the presence of the accused’s genetic material on the victim’s body and clothing.
• Digital footprints: Call Detail Records (CDR) and tower location data placed the accused at the crime scene during the estimated time of the offence and tracked his subsequent flight to Haryana.