Summary
The Court unanimously upheld convictions for kidnapping, sexual offences and murder of a toddler found with the accused inside his locked house. By a two-to-one majority it also affirmed the death sentence, relying on the established circumstances and its assessment that alternatives were foreclosed. The dissent agreed on guilt but favoured lifelong imprisonment without remission or commutation.
Issues
- Whether eyewitness, medical and DNA evidence established the offences.
- Whether the circumstances justified affirming the death sentence.
Held
- The majority accepted the police and other witnesses’ account of finding the accused and injured child together, supported by medical and forensic evidence. Those circumstances established guilt, and the accused failed to explain facts within his special knowledge. All judges agreed that the convictions should stand. (¶¶ Surya Kant J: 23, Surya Kant J: 24, Surya Kant J: 25, Surya Kant J: 26, Surya Kant J: 27, Surya Kant J: 28, Surya Kant J: 29, Surya Kant J: 30, Surya Kant J: 36, Subhash Reddy J: 1, Subhash Reddy J: 5)
- Y-STR profiling does not distinguish male relatives in the same paternal line, but can supply strong corroborative circumstantial evidence. Here the matches, undiscredited analysis, other evidence and absence of anyone else in the house supported the forensic inference; no particular close relative was suggested as the offender. (¶¶ Surya Kant J: 31, Surya Kant J: 32, Surya Kant J: 33, Surya Kant J: 34, Surya Kant J: 35)
- Applying the rarest-of-rare framework, the majority regarded the prolonged brutal assault on a helpless toddler, arrangements concealing the accused’s presence, and its assessment of absence of remorse or reform prospects as foreclosing the alternative punishment. The later POCSO amendment was discussed as legislative policy, expressly without retrospective application to the offence. (¶¶ Surya Kant J: 43, Surya Kant J: 44, Surya Kant J: 45, Surya Kant J: 49, Surya Kant J: 52, Surya Kant J: 57, Surya Kant J: 58, Surya Kant J: 59, Surya Kant J: 60, Surya Kant J: 61, Surya Kant J: 62, Surya Kant J: 63)
- The dissent considered the accused’s youth, poverty, intoxication, lack of previous crime and absence of prosecution evidence excluding reform sufficient to favour the alternative. It characterised the case as circumstantial and would substitute imprisonment until natural death without remission or commutation. This did not constitute the Court’s operative sentence. (¶¶ Subhash Reddy J: 18, Subhash Reddy J: 19, Subhash Reddy J: 20, Subhash Reddy J: 24, Subhash Reddy J: 28, Subhash Reddy J: 29, Subhash Reddy J: 30, Subhash Reddy J: 31, Subhash Reddy J: 33, Subhash Reddy J: 34, Subhash Reddy J: 39)
Result
By majority, the appeals were dismissed and the death sentence affirmed. The convictions under Sections 302, 363, 376 and 377 were upheld unanimously. Subhash Reddy J dissented only on sentence and would have substituted lifelong imprisonment without remission or commutation.