No Pre-Planning, First Time Offenders: Calcutta High Court Commutes Death Penalty In Triple Murder Case

The Calcutta High Court at Jalpaiguri recently commuted the death sentence awarded by the trial court to the convicts in a triple-murder case, to life imprisonment without remission for a period of 30 years,.

A division bench of Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Subhendu Samanta observed:

“Presence of mitigating factors like lack of criminal antecedents play an important role to opt for a more humanistic approach of imposition of life imprisonment without remission. Appellants are first time offenders. Though the three persons have been murdered, evidence on record do not show appellants had come to the spot armed or the murders were pre-planned.”

The appellants were convicted for offences under section 302 (Punishment for murder), section 392 (Punishment for robbery), section 411 (Dishonestly receiving stolen property) and section 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of IPC, after balancing the aggravating and mitigating factors.

The court was hearing the death reference and criminal appeal against the judgement and sentence order of the trial court.

The case of prosecution was that the appellants were commissioned for the furniture work at the house of deceased persons. It was alleged that the appellants committed robbery and killed three persons in the said house.

During the investigation several mobile phones, jewellery items, ATM Cards and cash were recovered from the appellants which were missing from the house of the deceased persons.

In the death sentence reference, the division bench of the High Court observed that the trial court has failed to address the mitigating circumstances.

The court observed:

“Perusal of the aggravating circumstances quoted by the trial Judge indicates he was primarily swayed to impose death sentence on the ground three persons were murdered. The other observations with regard to pre-planned or brutal nature of the crime does not find support from the evidence on record. It is unclear whether the appellants had entered into a conspiracy and had come to the residence of deceased with the intention to murder. On the other hand, it is more probable the common intention to murder had sprung up at the spot.”

The court noted that the appellants did not carry weapons and used household items such as coconut rope and bed sheet as ligature which showed that the murder was not pre-planned or gruesome.

The court further held that the appellants were carpenters who came from humble strata of society and the murder was committed by appellants out of fear of being detected.

The court relied upon the ratio laid down by Supreme Court in Union of India (UOI) v. V. Sriharan Alias Murugan and Ors. (2016) 7 SCC 1 which upheld the ratio in Swamy Shraddananda (2) v. State of Karnataka (2008) 13 SCC 767 and affirmed the power of superior Courts to impose life sentence without remission after commuting death sentence.

The court noted:

“The wholesome object was to humanise death penology by evolving an alternative course of imposing life imprisonment without remission in borderline cases which may otherwise attract death sentence. This jurisprudential innovation had the twin advantage of reducing the propensity of courts to impose death penalty in hard cases on the one hand while ruling out the societal apprehension of recidivism on the other hand.”

The court further observed that the appellants were carpenters who had committed robbery and to avoid detection they murdered the inmates of the house.

“Nothing is placed on record on behalf of the State to show they are hardened criminals who have no possibility for reformation. Apprehension of premature release leading to recidivism may be addressed by imposing appropriate bar on remission powers of the executive”, the court held.

Accordingly, after balancing the aggravating and mitigating factors, the court commuted the death sentences imposed on the appellants to rigorous imprisonment for life without remission for a period of 30 years.

Case Title: The State of West Bengal v. Sahadeb Barman & Ors. with related criminal appeal

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Cal) 66

Coram: Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Subhendu Samanta

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