Supreme Court sets aside death penalty, awards 25-yr jail without remission in sexual assault, murder case

While partly allowing the appeal, the bench set aside the Rs 20,000 fine imposed on him by the trial court, considering his socio-economic condition.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday commuted death penalty awarded to a man to life imprisonment with 25 years in jail without remission in a 2016 case of murder, kidnapping and sexual assault of a four-year-old boy.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai, Aravind Kumar and K V Vishwanathan upheld the conviction of appellant Shambhubhai Raisangbhai Padhiyar, relying upon the circumstantial evidence including the last seen and also that the convict failed to explain as to what happened when he took away the boy for buying him an ice cream on April 13, 2016.

The bench held that the present is not a case where it can be said that the possibility of reformation is completely ruled out, but the normal life term of 14 years would be grossly disproportionate and inadequate for him.

"Having regard to the nature of the offence, a sentence of imprisonment for a prescribed period without remission would alone be proportionate to the crime and also not jeopardise the public confidence in the efficacy of the legal system," the bench said.

The bench held the case of the appellant fell short of the rarest of rare category, so the court adopted the path carved out in Swami Shraddananda Vs State of Karnataka (2008).

Also taking a cue from Nawas Alias Mulanavas Vs State of Kerala (2024), the bench said, "We hold that a sentence of imprisonment for a period of 25 years without remission would be ‘a just dessert’."

Padhiyar challenged the Gujarat High Court's order which upheld the death penalty awarded to him by the trial court which convicted him of the offences under Sections 302, 364, and 377 of the IPC and Sections 4 and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual offences Act, 2012.

In the case, the bench said, "The appellant offered no explanation as to what happened after the time he spent with the child...The appellant’s lack of explanation is to say the least baffling."

The bench said that if the accused is last seen with the deceased and particularly in a case of this nature when the time gap between the last seen stage and occurrence of death is so short, the accused must offer a plausible explanation as to how he parted company with the deceased and the explanation offered must be satisfactory. 

In the case, the appellant's counsel submitted no DNA test was carried out.

To this, the bench said, "No doubt, the DNA test was not carried out and it would have been better for the prosecution to have done the same. However, keeping the overall conspectus of the case in mind, we do not think that not conducting DNA test was fatal to the prosecution."

In the case, the court noted the injuries as evidenced in the postmortem report clearly indicated that the deceased was subjected to aggressive penetrative sexual assault. 

"The injury on the prepuce of the penis of the accused along with the matching of the blood group coupled with other circumstantial evidence clearly constitute foundational facts for raising presumption under Sections 29 and 30 of the POCSO Act," the bench pointed out.

The bench said without doubt, the crime committed by the appellant was diabolic in character. 

"He enticed the innocent child by tempting him with ice-cream and brutally sodomized and murdered the four-year old. The appellant also mercilessly strangulated the deceased. The post-mortem report clearly indicated that death was due to asphyxia by throttling," the bench said.

The court, however, considered that the appellant was just 24 years of age, had no criminal antecedent and hailed from a low socio-economic household, to commute his sentence