Patna High Court Commutes Death Penalty Of 26-Year-Old Convicted For Murder, Rape Of Minor; Sentences Him To Life Imprisonment

The Patna High Court has commuted the death penalty awarded to a 26-year-old in a case of rape and murder to life imprisonment with no premature release or remission before undergoing actual imprisonment for a period of 25 years.

“In the present case, the appellant, on the date of filing of the appeal in 2021, was 24 years. He has a family with his wife and two infants, as has emerged from the materials on record. There is nothing on record to demonstrate that he has any criminal antecedent. Further, there is nothing against him as regards his jail conduct,” said the court.

The division bench of Justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh and Justice Rajesh Kumar Verma said the case cannot be said to be falling in the category of “rarest of rare” case and it cannot be said that there is no chance of the appellant's reformation considering his age, family and socio-economic background as to require the termination of his life for his culpability.

The court passed the ruling while partly allowing the criminal appeal of the appellant Jai Kishor Sah, who was held guilty of offenses punishable under Section 376-AB, 302 read with 201/34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Sections 5/6, 9/10 of the POCSO Act in 2021.

The victim, who was less than 12 year old, used to visit Sah's residence daily to babysit his child. When the minor did not return home on the day of incident, and Sah was also missing, the victim's father filed an FIR suspecting that Sah might have raped and killed the minor. The police apprehended Sah on the same day.

During the investigation, the victim's body was discovered packed in a plastic sack at Sah's residence based on his confessional statement. The post-mortem examination revealed that the cause of death was asphyxia due to throttling, with evidence of sexual assault.

On 20.02.2021, Sah was convicted and sentenced to death by the 6th Additional Sessions Judge-cum-Special Judge (POCSO), Gopalganj. Following the conviction, Sah appealed against the judgment and sentence under Section 374(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

“The chain of circumstances are complete in the present case, which are incapable of explanation of any other hypothesis than that of the appellant’s guilt. We, therefore, see no reason to interfere with the conviction recorded by the trial court in its impugned judgment,” the court said while upholding Sah's conviction.

However, the question before the bench was whether the act of the appellant fell in the category of "rarest of the rare case" to sustain the sentence of death imposed by the trial court for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the IPC.

“We consider it, just and proper, to apply the course adopted in various cases involving crimes of similar nature to commute the sentence of capital punishment to life imprisonment without application of then provisions of premature release/remission before mandatory actual imprisonment for a substantial length of time,” the court held while modifying the sentences imposed by the trial court for various offences found to have been proved against the appellant.

Case Title: Jai Kishor vs The State of Bihar CRIMINAL APPEAL (DB) No.338 of 2021

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