Achi news desk-
GUWAHATI: The Gauhati High Court has commuted the death sentence of a convicted murderer to life imprisonment, arguing that the trial court did not consider the possibility of reformation, rehabilitation and social integration of the convict. The convict was involved in the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) cash-for-work case and was sentenced to death for a murder committed in 2018.
A division bench of Justices Kalyan Rai Surana and Maridul Kumar Kalita noted that the trial court’s imposition of death penalty lacked special reasons, and held that the case did not fall within "The rare that is rare" category. We also noted that the mitigating factors in the case are enough to justify the conversion.
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The case stems from an incident on March 14, 2018, in which an informant found his niece dead with a cut to her neck. The informant saw the defendant running away with a blood-stained dau (a large butcher’s knife), which led to the defendant’s arrest. Subsequent investigations indicated that the accused, who was involved in the APSC case, was responsible for the murder.
The trial court convicted the accused under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced him to death. However, after a review, the High Court of Justice found that the lower court’s verdict was influenced by the defendant’s previous criminal record, which consists of allegations of inappropriate behavior that have not been legally proven.
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In their ruling, the High Court stated that a single cut on the victim’s body does not meet the standard of "The rare that is rare" Cases that justify the conversion to life imprisonment. The committee also emphasized that the extreme death penalty should only be imposed when the possibility of reform, rehabilitation and social reintegration is ruled out, which was not the case here.
