SC Commutes Death Penalty Awarded For Rape-Murder Of Minor

SC Commutes Death Penalty Awarded For Rape-Murder Of Minor

GARVIT TRIPATHI 

INTRODUCTION

Residual doubt is any remaining or lingering doubt a jury has concerning the defendant’s guilt despite having been satisfied ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’. In certain states, the jury may consider residual doubt as a non-statutory mitigating factor.SC Commutes Death Penalty Awarded For Rape-Murder Of Minor.

   ‘Mitigating factors’ are those relating to the capital defendant’s ‘character or record and any circumstance of the offence’ and are usually listed within the state’s capital sentencing.

BACKGROUND

The Supreme court on Thursday applied ‘residual doubt theory’ to commute the death penalty awarded to a person for rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl. As per this theory, a higher standard of proof than used at the conviction stage is used to assess whether the convict deserves the death penalty.

The bench of justice Rohinton Fail Nariman, R.Subhash reddy and Surya Kant said,  “this court has increasingly become cognizant of residual doubt in many recent cases which effectively create a higher standard of proof over and above the beyond reasonable doubt standard used at the stage of conviction, as a safeguard against routine capital sentencing, keeping in mind the irreversibility of death.”

The Appellant before the SC, one Ravishanker, had been accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl, committing rape on her, killing her by throttling and thereafter destroying the evidence by throwing her half-naked body in a dry well. Accordingly, charges were framed against him under section 363, 366, 372(2), 376(2),302 and 201 of the IPC and under the corresponding provisions of pocso act.

As per the high court, mitigating factors like lack of criminal antecedents and a large number of dependants of the appellant were out weighted by his mature age, the heinousness of offence, adverse reaction of society, pre-planned manner of crime, injuries on the body of deceased and lack of regret during the trial.

CURRENT ISSUE (SC Commutes Death Penalty Awarded For Rape-Murder Of Minor)

The supreme court noted that the case against the appellant had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of circumstantial evidence, supported by ocular and medico-scientific evidence.

Clarifying that capital punishment could be awarded even in cases of circumstantial evidence, the court said, ‘it would be totally imprudent to lay down an absolute principle of law that no death sentence can be awarded in a case where the conviction is based on circumstantial evidence. Such a standard would be ripe for abuse by seasoned criminals who always make sure to destroy direct evidence. Further in many cases of rape and murder of children, the victims owing to their tender age can put up no resistance. In such cases, it is extremely likely that there would be no ocular evidence.’ It then went on to examine the case on a limited scope that whether or not the appellant deserved to be imposed with the extreme sentence of the death penalty.

In this regard, the court traced the evolution of the rarest of rare doctrine from the decision of the constitution bench of the supreme court in BACHAN SINGH VS. STATE OF PUNJAB (1980)2 SSC 684, through MACHHI SINGH AND OTHERS VS. STATE OF PUNJAB(1983)3 SSC 470, up until SWAMY SHRADDANANDA VS. STATE OF KARNATAKA (2008)13 SCC 767, observing that the courts had steadily restricted the circumstances for the award of the death penalty and had increased the burden of showing special reason before mandating death penalty, in consonance with section 354(3) of crpc.

Rather, the conflicting views on reformation of the convict and creating deterrence in the society had led the three-judge bench in SWAMY SHRADDANANDA VS. STATE OF KARNATAKA, to evolve a hybrid special category of a sentence; commute death sentence and substitute it with life imprisonment with the direction that the convict would not be released from prison for the rest of his life. This special sentencing theory was later approved by a constitution bench in UOI VS. SRIHARAN ALIAS MURUGAN AND ORS. , (2016) 7 SSC 747, Sentencing of capital punishment had been further restricted by sc in ASHOK DEBBARMA VS. STATE OF TRIPURA (2014) 4 SSC 747, wherein the theory of residual doubt was first adopted.

This theory tilts towards mitigating circumstance whilst sentencing, in order to create a higher standard of proof over and above the beyond reasonable doubt standard as a safeguard against routine capital sentencing. Notably, we also fellows this theory.

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CONCLUSION

In view, therefore , the court commuted the capital sentence and substituted it with imprisonment for life with a direction that no remission shall be granted to the appellant and that he shall remain in prison for the rest of his life.

The court lastly said, ‘death being irrevocable there lies a greater degree of responsibility on the court for in-depth scrutiny of the entire material on record. Still further, qualitatively, the penalty imposed by awarding death is much different than in incarceration, both for the convict and for the state. Hence a corresponding distinction in requisite standards of proof by taking note of residual doubt during sentencing would not be unwarranted.

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