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Synopsis

In a 3-year-old's brutal rape and murder case, the Allahabad High Court commuted the death penalty awarded to the convict to a definitive 30-year imprisonment without the possibility of remission.

The bench of Justices Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi took into consideration the young age of the convict who was 25 years old at the time of the crime, and the fact that he was married and had a child. 

"There is neither any criminal history to the credit of the appellant-accused nor he is a previous convict so chances of his reformation cannot be ruled out. These are the mitigating circumstances," the division bench said. 

Court referred to a recent judgment of the Supreme Court in Kashi Nath Singh alias Kallu Singh Versus State of Jharkhand (2023) where a 14-year-old girl was brutally subjected to rape and murder and the death penalty was imposed by the trial court which was commuted to a sentence of life imprisonment for the whole of biological life without any benefit of remission by the High Court.

However, the Top Court had modified it to a fixed term sentence for a period of 30 years without any benefit of remission, considering the fact that the appellant was 26 years of age and there could be chances of his reformation.

In the present case, the high court was dealing with a capital criminal appeal filed against the judgment and order passed by Special Judge (POCSO Act) in case under Sections 364, 302, 376AB, 377, 201 I.P.C. and 6 of The Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act).

The appellant namely Dinesh Paswan had been convicted and sentenced to death for the offence under Section 6 of The Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act,2012 and 302 IPC besides other sentences with default stipulation.

The case against him was that he enticed away three-year-old daughter of the informant during an idol immersion celebration took her to his room and brutally committed her murder after sexually assaulting her and thereafter concealed her dead body.

During the trial, the prosecution produced 17 witnesses in oral evidence who proved 26 prosecution papers and 42 material exhibits. On the other hand, no evidence oral or documentary had been produced in defence. Therefore, trial court, after hearing submissions of the parties, had held the appellant-accused guilty and sentenced him the death penalty. 

The high court also held that from the prosecution evidence, it stood proved that accused with evil intention was attempting to lure the victim to his room, dead body of the victim was found in the room occupied by the accused, who was present in the room bolting it from inside, when the room was forcibly opened, postmortem report confirmed that the victim was subjected to brutal sexual assault and the forensic examination report confirmed that the offence had been committed by the accused as his DNA matched with DNA profile from anal swab of the victim collected during postmortem.

Therefore, the high court found no illegality or perversity in the finding of guilt recorded by the trial court and held that it considered all aggravating and mitigating circumstances and with a detailed and reasoned order to conclude that the case fell in the category of rarest of the rare cases.

However, the division bench observed that the court has to decide the punishment after considering all aggravating and mitigating factors and the circumstances in which the crime has been committed.

Therefore, while stating that the convict's young age and his family were the mitigating factors, it decided to commute the sentence awarded to him. 

Case Title: Dinesh Paswan v State of UP