"Human Life Is A Precious Gift Of God": MP High Court Spares Convict From Death Row In Child Rape-Murder Case

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has commuted the death sentence awarded to a man convicted of raping and murdering a two-year-five-month-old girl in Shahdol district, holding that the case did not meet the "rarest of rare" threshold required to justify capital punishment, even as it upheld his conviction for the crime.

A division bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Avanindra Kumar Singh was hearing a criminal reference for confirmation of the death sentence along with three connected appeals against a judgment dated January 13, 2026, passed by the Special Judge, POCSO Act, Budhar, in Shahdol, which had convicted Ram Narayan @ Bhanu Dhimar under Sections 302, 201 and 506 Part-II of the IPC read with Section 5(m)/6 of the POCSO Act, and sentenced him to death.

According to the prosecution, the child's mother had left her sleeping at Bhanu's house on the night of March 1, 2023, and gone to collect coal at a nearby colliery with other family members. On returning, she found her daughter lying naked and bleeding, with injuries on her face and private parts. The child was taken to hospital and later referred to Shahdol Medical College, where she died on March 7, 2023. The postmortem, conducted by Dr. Amreen Khan and Dr. Pawan A Wankhede, recorded a skull fracture along with vaginal and anal injuries, and opined that death resulted from a combination of head injury and sexual assault.

Two other accused, Rajkumar Dhimar and Pinky Dhimar, had been convicted by the trial court only for criminally intimidating the victim's mother under Section 506 Part-II IPC, while a fourth accused, Radheshyam @ Bitani Dhimar, was acquitted after DNA reports failed to match him to the crime, a finding the State chose not to appeal. The victim's lower garment, recovered from Ram Narayan's house along with a bedsheet on his memorandum statement, was found to match her own DNA source swabs.

Before the High Court, Senior Advocate Aditya Adhikari, assisted by amicus curiae Nitin Gupta and Anannya Shree Adhikari, appeared for the appellants, while Government Advocate Manas Mani Verma represented the State. The defence argued that the DNA report did not implicate the appellants and that several of the 34 prosecution witnesses had turned hostile or contradicted each other.

The bench noted contradictions between the treating doctor, who found no signs of sexual assault at admission, and the postmortem doctors, who later recorded clear evidence of penetrative assault. Invoking Section 106 of the Evidence Act, the court held that since the victim's mother had shown Bhanu's presence at the scene, "the burden of proving that fact is upon him." The court observed that "as far as conviction of appellant Ram Narayan @ Bhanu Dhimer... it cannot be faulted with."

On sentencing, the bench weighed aggravating and mitigating circumstances, referencing Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab and Mukesh v. State (NCT of Delhi). It noted that "brutality was inflicted by an adult upon an infant incapable of resistance or articulation," but also considered that Ram Narayan had no prior criminal record, was around 32 years old, came from an economically weak rural background, and had been socially boycotted for marrying outside his caste. His conduct in custody, the court noted, had remained "normal."

The bench also referred to a chart of Supreme Court precedents commuting death sentences in similar rape-and-murder cases, citing young age, absence of prior offences, and satisfactory jail conduct as recurring mitigating factors. Holding that the accused "cannot be treated to be a menace to the society requiring 'rarest of rare' punishment," and that "human life is a precious gift of God," the bench commuted his sentence "from death to one of life imprisonment for at least 25 years without any remission."

The court also set aside the convictions of Rajkumar and Pinky Dhimar under Section 506 Part-II IPC, noting that intimidation and concealment were proved only against Ram Narayan, and acquitted them.

Case Title: In Reference vs. Ram Narayan @ Bhanu Dhimar, with connected matters

Date of Judgment: August 31, 2026

Bench: Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Avanindra Kumar Singh