Doctrine Of Prudence: SC Commutes Death Penalty Awarded To Man Convicted For Murder Of Wife, 4 Kids [Read Judgment]

Partly allowing his review petition, the Supreme Court commuted the death penalty awarded to Sudam @ Rahul Kaniram Jadhav, convicted for murder of his wife and four children.

Sudam was accused of murdering his wife, and the four children by strangulating them. The conviction and sentence of death by the Trial Court was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2012. The review petition was also dismissed by circulation. However, in view of judgment in Mohd. Arif @ Ashfaq v. Registrar, Supreme Court of India, the review petition was heard again in open court.

No Additional Ground At The Stage of Review

Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, who appeared for the review petitioner, contended that the entire case was built on circumstantial evidence, i.e. the "last seen" evidence, two purported extra-judicial confessions, and the motive of the Petitioner, all of which were erroneously relied upon.

Relying on an order passed in Md. Arif @ Ashfaq, it was contended that it is permissible to raise any additional ground at the stage of review. The bench then interpreted the following order dated 31.10.2018 passed in Md. Arif @ Ashfaq: "We permit the petitioner to raise all such additional grounds in support of the said review petition as may be legally permissible to him":

Suffice it to say that there can be no argument that this Court cannot re-appreciate evidence in its entirety in the exercise of its review jurisdiction. Furthermore, it is evident that the reference to "additional grounds" in the observations in the order dated 31.10.2018 in Md. Arif @ Ashfaq v. State (NCT of Delhi) (supra) reproduced above pertains to additional grounds which could have been raised by the review petitioner before this Court in the exercise of its review jurisdiction and had not been raised when the review petition had originally been filed before this Court.

In fact, a reading of the entire order reveals that the Court at that juncture was dealing with a criminal miscellaneous application seeking that the scope of the permission granted by this Court in Md. Arif @ Ashfaq v. The Registrar, Supreme Court (supra) to re-hear review petitions dismissed vide circulation be extended to also include cases where a curative petition had been dismissed vide circulation after the dismissal of review, since this category of cases had been specifically denied the relief of re-hearing by the Court. With particular regard for the fact that the petitioner therein was the only person to be denied an open Court hearing due to this limitation, and in light of the limited grounds on which a curative petition could be filed, which meant that the rejection of a review petition could never be completely reconsidered in curative jurisdiction, this Court in its order dated 31.10.2018 9 extended the relief of re-hearing to dismissed curative petitions as well. It was while doing so that the observations that have been relied upon by learned Counsel for the Petitioner came to be passed.

In view of the above discussion, we are constrained to reject the contention raised by learned Counsel for the Petitioner that the above observations have created a window for this Court to re-appreciate the entire evidence on record while hearing review petitions. The submissions of learned Counsel for the Petitioner have to be considered keeping the above discussion in mind.

The contention positively considered by the bench comprising of Justice NV Ramana, Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar and Justice Indira Banerjee was that, while considering the appeal, the Supreme Court had observed that the accused had crushed the face of the deceased to avoid identification. On this aspect, the bench observed:

There is no evidence to the effect that her face was marred beyond recognition or that there appeared to be any attempt to do so. We find that this is yet another error apparent on the face of the record.

Doctrine of Prudence

The Court, referred to the judgment in Ashok Debbarma v. State of Tripura, (2014) 4 SCC 747, which discusses the concept of "residual doubt"—which means that in spite of being convinced of the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, the Court may harbour lingering or residual doubts in its mind regarding such guilt. It was noted there therein that the existence of residual doubt was a ground sometimes urged before American Courts as a mitigating circumstance. While the concept of "residual doubt" has undoubtedly not been given much attention in Indian capital sentencing jurisprudence, the fact remains that this Court has on several occasions held the quality of evidence to a higher standard for passing the irrevocable sentence of death than that which governs conviction, that is to say, it has found it unsafe to award the death penalty for convictions based on the nature of the circumstantial evidence on record, the bench further observed.

Principle of prudence, as described in Santosh Kumar Satishbhushan Bariyar vs. State of Maharashtra, referring to Bacchan Singh, is this: Whenever in the given circumstances, there is difference of opinion with respect to any sentencing prop/rationale, or subjectivity involved in the determining factors, or lack of thoroughness in complying with the sentencing procedure, it would be advisable to fall in favour of the "rule" of life imprisonment rather than invoking the "exception" of death punishment.

Applying the doctrine of prudence to the facts of this case, the bench observed:

Evidently, even the fact that the evidence was circumstantial in nature did not weigh very heavily on the Court's mind, let alone the strength and nature of the circumstantial evidence. Be that as it may, we find that the material on record is sufficient to convince the Court of the Petitioner's guilt beyond reasonable doubt; however, the nature of the circumstantial evidence in this case amounts to a mitigating circumstance significant enough to tilt the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the Petitioner's favour, keeping in mind the doctrine of prudence. Moreover, it is also possible that the incorrect observations pertaining to Anita's facial injuries further led the Court to conclude in favour of imposing the death sentence on the Petitioner. Thus, we are of the considered opinion that there was a reasonable probability that this Court would have set aside the sentence of death in appeal, since the only surviving evidence against the Petitioner herein pertains to his motive to commit the crime, the circumstance of "last seen" and a solitary extra-judicial confession. In other words, it cannot be said that the punishment of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed in the instant case, in spite of the gravity and barbarity of the offence.

The bench then commuted the death sentence to imprisonment for the remainder of his life sans any right to remission.

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