Supreme Court Commutes Death Sentence in a Triple Murder Case

Supreme Court has recently commuted the death penalty awarded to a man convicted for triple murder.

A bench comprising of Justice B.V. Nagarathna, Justice L. Nageshwar Rao, Justice B.R. Gavai was considering an appeal filed by the convict against the Madhya Pradesh High Court Judgment sentencing him to death by affirming the death sentence passed by the trial Court for the offenses punishable under Sections 302, 201 and 506B of Indian Penal Code.

The bench while commuting the sentence of death penalty and converting it to rigorous imprisonment for 30 years, observed that,

"Since the appellant comes from a rural and economic background and has no criminal antecedents, he cannot be called a hardened criminal and this was his first offence. In addition to this, the certificate issued by Jail superintendent shows that the conduct of the appellant during incarceration has been satisfactory so there is a possibility of appellant being reformed and rehabilitated and thus, we are inclined to convert the sentence imposed from death to life."

The apex court relied on several judgments including, Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab and Machchi Singh & Ors. v. State of Punjab where it was observed that,

"In deciding whether a case falls within the category of the rarest of the rare, the brutality and/or gruesome and/or heinous nature of the crime is not the sole criterion. Court has to take into consideration the state of his mind, his socio-economic background etc. Awarding death sentence is an exception and life imprisonment is the rule."

While the counsel for prosecution argued the matter based on ocular evidence and admitted that the witness testimonies, on occasion, suffered from minor inconsistencies, the court observed that, "there are always normal discrepancies due to normal errors of observation, normal errors of memory due to lapse of time, due to mental disposition, shock and horror at the time of occurrence".

The appellant's counsel had two primary arguments; one regarding the certain discrepancies in testimonies on which the appellant's counsel sought that his case be set aside and second regarding the non-necessity of death sentence considering appellant was a first-time offender.

In addition to commuting the death sentence while upholding the conviction, the bench looked into the question of setting aside witness testimonies on the basis of minor inconsistencies and referred to the landmark judgment of State of Uttar Pradesh v. Krishna Master & Ors. where it was held that

"The statements given by the witnesses before the police are meant to be brief statements and could not take place of evidence in the court. Small/trivial omissions would not justify a finding by court that the witnesses concerned are liars. The prosecution evidence may suffer from inconsistencies here and discrepancies there, but that is shortcoming from which no criminal case is free."

Thus, the court held that the ocular testimony of witnesses established the guilt of the accused beyond any reasonable doubt in this case while simultaneously noting that the case did not warrant a death penalty because, "from the judgment of the trial court, it does not appear that the appellant was given a meaningful time and a real opportunity of hearing on the question of sentence. The trial court and the High Court has only taken into consideration the crime but have not taken into consideration the criminal, his state of mind and his socio-economic background."

Appeals were partly allowed and the appellant was awarded rigorous imprisonment of 30 years.

Senior Advocate N Hariharan argued for the Appeallnt/Convict

Swarupama Chaturvedi, Assistant Advocate General appeared on behalf of the respondent state.

BHAGCHANDRA Vs STATE OF MP

Citation : LL 2021 SC 740

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