Taking a serious view of the brutal manner in which a young man raped and murdered a girl child, the Supreme Court has ordered that he serve life sentence for the whole of his life.
A Bench of Justices H.S. Bedi, P. Sathasivam and C.K. Prasad was disposing of an appeal by Rameshbhai Chandubhai Rathod against a Gujarat High Court judgment that affirmed the death sentence awarded to him by the trial court.
Earlier, a Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat (since retired) and A.K. Ganguly gave a split verdict. While Justice Pasayat held that since this was the rarest of rare cases, the appellant should be awarded the death penalty, Justice Ganguly favoured life sentence. So, the matter was referred to a three-judge Bench.
Now, writing the judgment, Justice Bedi said: “We notice that there is a very thin line of facts which separates the award of capital sentence from life sentence in the case, and the subjective opinion of individual judges as to the morality, efficacy or otherwise of a death sentence cannot entirely be ruled out.”
The Bench said: “It is now well settled that as of today, the broad principle is that the death sentence is to be awarded only in exceptional cases. Both judges [Justices Pasayat and Ganguly] have relied extensively on the Dhanonjoy Chatterjee's case. In this case, the death sentence had been awarded by the trial court on similar facts and confirmed by the Calcutta High Court, and the appeal too was dismissed by this court, leading to the execution of the accused.”
The Bench noted that Justice Ganguly had drawn a distinction between the facts of that case and the present one and held that as the appellant was only 27 years, there was still scope for his rehabilitation and reformation.
The Bench said: “We are therefore of the opinion that in the light of the findings recorded by Justice Ganguly, it would not be proper to maintain the death sentence on the appellant. At the same time, the gravity of the offence, the behaviour of the appellant and the fear and concern such incidents generate in ordered society cannot be ignored.”
The Bench, while commuting the death sentence, directed that the life sentence extend to the full life of the appellant, but subject to any remission or commutation at the instance of the government for good and sufficient reasons.
