Calcutta HC commutes death sentence awarded to man who raped and killed 8 year old girl [Read Judgment]

The Calcutta High Court has commuted the death sentence awarded by Trial Court to a person convicted for rape and murder of an Eight year old girl, by modifying the conviction from Section 302 IPC to Section 304 (II) IPC and sentenced him to ten years imprisonment.

Division Bench comprising of Justices Nadira Patherya and Debi Prosad Dey allowed the appeal in part and answered the death sentence reference in negative. The trial Court had awarded death sentence to the convict for committing rape and murder of the 8 year old.

‘NO INTENTION TO COMMIT MURDER’

Referring to Post mortem report, the Court said “It is therefore apparent from the facts and circumstances of this casethat the convict had no intention to commit murder of the victim but thevictim could not bear the violent onslaught of the convict at the time ofcommission of such offence under Section 376 (2)(f) of the Indian PenalCode. The convict had also definite knowledge that by such action the victimcould have died.  Relying on the aforesaid decision of the Apex Court we dohold that such offence of the convict would squarely fall within the purviewof Section 304 (II) of the Indian Penal Code and accordingly we reduce thesentence awarded by the learned Trial Judge under Section 302 of IndianPenal Code to one under Section 304 (II) of Indian Penal Code and sentencehim to suffer Rigorous Imprisonment for 10(ten) years and to pay a fine ofRs.10,000/-(Ten thousand) i.d. Rigorous Imprisonment for 2(two) years.”

‘INITIALLY CONCEALED, BUT LATER REVEALED’

The Court also set aside conviction under Section 201 IPC by observing thus: “Admittedly, the convict/appellant after commission of suchoffence concealed the dead body under water hyacinth of a pond in order tocause dis-appearance of the evidence of offence but ultimately the dead bodywas recovered pursuant to the information given by the convict/appellant.The convict/appellant also did not conceal the whereabouts of the deadbody though initially he had concealed the  dead body.  Therefore we do notfind any applicability of Section 201 of the Indian Penal Code and accordingly the conviction of the appellant under Section 201 of the IndianPenal Code is set aside.”

Read the Judgment here.