“It took me quite a long time develop the voice and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.”
-Madeleine Albright
Bombay High Court: A Division Bench comprising of Ranjit V. More and Bharati H. Dangre, JJ. confirmed the death sentence awarded to the accused in the gruesome case of rape and murder of a 23 year old software engineer in Mumbai.
The incident
The victim was a software engineer working in Mumbai. She took a leave in December 2013 went to meet her parents in Andhra Pradesh. She was returning on 4 January 2014. Next morning, when her train was scheduled to reach Mumbai, her father attempted to contact her but without success. On the same day, a missing complaint was lodged with police. Thus began a frantic search for the victim. After 11 days, on 16 January, her half-burnt body was traced in the bushes on express highway.
The investigation
An FIR under Section 302 and 201 was registered. CCTV footage from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus was obtained which revealed that the victim walked out of the railway station on 5 January along with a stranger who was carrying her trolley bag. The man was identified as one Chandrabhan Sanap (accused) and was arrested. On his disclosure, articles belonging to the victim as well motorcycle on which she was driven to the crime spot was seized.
Prosecution case and the trial court decision
The accused was charged for abducting the victim on 5 January 2014 at 5.30 am from LTT Station on the pretext of dropping her at the hostel and thereafter he drove her on his bike to crime spot and committed rape on her. He was charged with Sections 364, 366, 376(2)(m), 376-A, 392 read with Section 397, 302 and 201 IPC. After the conclusion of the trial, the trial court convicted the accused and sentenced him to be hanged by neck till he is dead.
Confirmation case and appeal to the High Court
As per Section 28(2) CrPC, on imposition of death sentence, the matter has to be referred for confirmation of the High Court. The confirmation case was tagged with the appeal filed by the accused against the judgment of the trial court. The case of prosecution was based on circumstantial evidence and the prosecution had relied on 39 witnesses to establish its case along with several documentary evidence. After considering the evidence in detail including witness testimony, CCTV footage, DNA reports, post-mortem report, etc., the Court was of the opinion that prosecution was able to establish a complete chain of circumstances by cogent and reliable evidence. It was held that the prosecution had established the case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt.
Death Sentence
In order to decide the question of confirmation of the death sentence, the Court relied on Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 684 and after praying due regard to both crime and criminal, drew a balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating factors. The Court observed,
” The way in which a society protects its victims of crime is a barometer of that society’s standards of human dignity and decency. When a woman in the society is raped, it is not only she who is subjected to rape, but it is the tendency that is reflected to overpower, to violate and to crash the dignity of the entire woman creed in the society.”
It was further observed that for a small pleasure, a young woman who had just stepped into womanhood was done to death with extreme vileness. The abhorrent, grotesque and perverted manner in which she was murdered by the accused was also taken note of. In Court’s specific opinion, although ‘reformative theory’ is recognised as one of the leading theory for imposition of penalty but undue stress on the same would defeat basic tenets of imposition of penalty where crime committed obnoxiously shocks the collective conscience of the society. Furthermore, merely because behaviour of accused as under-trial prisoner was good, could not be a ground to absolve him of the most gruesome act he committed. In the present case, the only fault of victim was that she fell prey to the sinister design of the accused to fulfill his lust. As such, the Court upheld the death sentence awarded to the accused holding it to be ‘rarest of rare’ case which amounts to the devastation of social trust, shocks social conscience and calls for extreme penalty of capital punishment.
Accordingly, the death sentence was confirmed and the criminal appeal filed by the accused was dismissed. [State of Maharashtra v. Chandrabhan Sudam Sanap, 2018 SCC OnLine Bom 6576, dated 20-12-2018]
The decision of H C Bombay is correct. Death sentence is not sufficient to rapist but no one can do other thing.
Although the High Court has confirmed the death sentence calling it ‘Rarest of rare’, going by the recent Supreme Court judgment by which death sentence of a convict for rape-murder of a seven year old girl was commuted to life imprisonment wherein it was laid down that even in the case where reformation is not possible, life imprisonment should be the preferred sentence; it is more than likely that it will commute the sentence to life imprisonment. It is worth noting that fewer and fewer death sentences in such cases are affirmed by Supreme Court and that no rape- murder convict sentenced to death has actually been executed after the year 2004. (Dhananjay Chatterjee was the last one to be executed that year for rape-murder.)
Although the High Court has confirmed the death sentence calling it ‘Rarest of rare’, going by the recent Supreme Court judgment in which it was laid down that even in the case where there is no possibility of reformation of the convict, life imprisonment for natural span of life should be the preferred sentence; it is more than likely that the Supreme Court will commute the sentence to life imprisonment. It is relevant to note that fewer and fewer death sentences are affirmed by the Supreme Court and that no convict sentenced to death for rape and murder has actually been executed since 2004. Need anything more be said?
Good decision by trial court and nicely upheld by high court Bombay bench. Thanks for the judiciary for giving hardest capital punishment.