'Is He Some Kind Of A Monster?': Supreme Court Remarks While Staying Execution Of Death Penalty

The Supreme Court has stayed the execution of the death sentence awarded to a man who was found guilty for the gruesome act of murdering a woman by strangulating her,  cutting her abdomen and taking out some organs from her body

Though the bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, S A Bobde, stayed the execution, it could not hide its shock and horror at the crime.

"We have never come across a case like this", the CJI told Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra, who was appearing for the convict Mohan Singh as part of legal aid scheme.

"Is he (Singh) some kind of a monster or what?", the bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, said.

"Your client has done the most unpleasant act. Why did he cut open the abdomen and put cloth in the stomach? Is he some kind of a surgeon or what?", the bench observed.

The bench then proceeded to call for the records of the case and stayed the execution.

The apex court was hearing an appeal against the August 7 verdict of the Rajasthan High Court which had confirmed the death sentence awarded to Singh by a trial court in the case lodged in 2019. The crime happened in May 2019 for which the trial court awarded death penalty within nine months in February 2020.

According to police, an FIR was lodged in May last year after a woman's body, which was tied with wires, was found in a bag.

The court noted that the accused was earlier convicted in another murder case.

The high court, while upholding the trial court's verdict awarding him death penalty, had referred to the post mortem report of the victim as per which several organs, including liver, were missing from her body.

"..the convict had not only murdered the deceased by strangulation, but had thereafter cut her abdomen and taken out certain organs from the body and had put her kurti and petticoat in her abdomen and had stitched the abdomen with a wire", a division bench of Justices Sabina and Chandra Kumar Songara observed in the High Court judgment.

"Keeping in view the criminal antecedents of the convict as well as the manner in which the present crime has been committed, learned trial court had rightly sentenced the convict Mohan Singh @ Mahaveer with death sentence under Section 302 IPC", the HC added.

Click here to download the SC order

Click here to download the HC judgment