New Delhi: But for a last-minute change of heart by the highest court of the land, six persons accused of murdering five members of a family and gang-raping two women, including a 15-year-old girl, might have been hanged to death by now.
The six were acquitted and ordered to be released by a three-judge Supreme Court bench Tuesday.
The 2009 judgment
On 30 April 2009, a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and Mukundakam Sharma held that the actions of the accused fell in the “rarest of rare” category, and ruled that “all the six accused persons deserve death sentence”.
In doing so, the bench not only upheld the conviction and sentence passed by the Bombay High Court with regard to three of the accused, but also overturned the order with regard to the other three persons, who had been spared the death sentence and awarded life imprisonment. The top court awarded these three the death sentence too.
“The case at hand falls in the rarest of rare category. The depraved acts of the accused call for only one sentence that is death sentence… The murders were not only cruel, brutal but were diabolic,” the judgment said.
“The High Court has held that those who were guilty of rape and murder deserve death sentence, while those who were convicted for murder only were to be awarded life sentence…. The High Court itself noticed that five members of a family were brutally murdered, they were not known to the accused and there was no animosity towards them.
“Four of the witnesses were of tender age, they were defenceless and the attack was without any provocation. Some of them were so young that they could not resist any attack by the accused. A minor girl of about fifteen years was dragged in the open field, gang raped and done to death.”
Also read: For these 6 men on death row, freedom has been a 15-year-long wait
Why the judgment was overturned
Almost a decade later, the three-judge bench of the apex court heard the review petitions filed by the convicts, in view of the landmark judgment of the Supreme Court in a bunch matter — Mohd. Arif alias Ashfaq versus The Registrar, Supreme Court of India and Others — and acquitted all the accused.
In the Mohd Arif case, a Constitution bench ruled that accused had the right of “limited oral hearing in review petitions where death sentence” had been given, including TADA cases. It also cited the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, to underline that “henceforth, in all cases in which death sentence has been awarded by the High Court in appeals pending before the Supreme Court, only a bench of three Hon’ble Judges will hear the same”.
Drawing its cue from this judgment, the bench of Justices Kurian Joseph, A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, on 31 October 2018, recalled the judgment of the earlier bench and the grounds that three of the accused had not been granted any opportunity to be heard before they were handed the death sentence.
“They have been deprived of an opportunity of engaging counsel and of urging such submissions as they may have been advised to urge in defence to the appeals filed by the State for enhancement,” the bench said.
It also came down heavily on the prosecution and the investigating agency for not acting in honest and fair manner.
“…Their ultimate aim should not be to get conviction by hook or crook. Applying the aforesaid principles to the facts of the case on hand, we are of the opinion that there was no fair and honest investigation and even prosecution tried to suppress the material fact from the court,” the bench noted.
Underlining that all the accused persons were part of the “nomadic tribes coming from the lower strata of the society and are very poor labourers”, the bench said: “Therefore, in the facts and circumstances of the case, false implication cannot be ruled out since it is common occurrence that in serious offences sometime innocent persons are roped in.”
Also read: SC acquits 6 men of murder & rape charges, 9 years after it upheld their death sentence
fair enough that the supreme court gave judgement on these grounds, but it seems highly unjust that the investigators were not penalized. It is highly unfair that somebody is called acquitted for such a serious crime but there is no further step to get the genuine criminal or at least declare a bad trial and ask for re-investigation, such serious crimes cannot just be treated as a game of conviction-acquittal.
Laxity on the part of the officials must be punished if that is the reason why somebody is let scot free. At least they should be dismissed from service. Why isn’t the supreme court doing that at least?