New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of the father who murdered his pregnant daughter, also leading to the death of the child in the womb, over her inter-caste marriage. Commuting the death sentence, the apex court said that the crime committed by the appellant is unquestionably grave and unpardonable but it is not appropriate to affirm the death sentence that was awarded to him.
A bench comprising justices B R Gavai, Aravind Kumar, and K V Viswanathan said the appellant Eknath Kisan Kumbharkar was aged about 38 years at the time of commission of the crime and he has no criminal antecedents, and the medical reports of the appellant would disclose that he has speech issues, and he has undergone an angioplasty in 2014, apart from suffering other serious ailments.
The bench said the conduct report from the prison would disclose that the behaviour of the appellant in the jail is satisfactory with everyone for the past six years. “We are of the considered view that even though the crime committed by the appellant is unquestionably grave and unpardonable, it is not appropriate to affirm the death sentence that was awarded to him. The doctrine of ‘rarest of rare’ requires that the death sentence should not be imposed only by taking into consideration the grave nature of crime but only if there is no possibility of reformation by a criminal”, said the bench.
The bench said being conscious of the fact that sentence of life imprisonment is subject to remission, which would not be appropriate in view of the gruesome crime committed by the appellant, the course of middle path requires to be adopted in the instant case. “In that view of the matter, we find that the death penalty needs to be converted to a fixed sentence during which period the appellant would not be entitled to apply for remission”, said the bench.
The bench noted that in the instant case, it is to be noted that appellant hails from a poor nomadic community in Maharashtra. He had an alcoholic father and suffered parental neglect and poverty. He dropped out of school when he was 10 years old and was forced to start working to support his family, doing odd jobs, and all efforts put by the appellant to bring his family out of poverty did not yield desired results, said the apex court.
In the present case, the appellant was unhappy with his daughter's (deceased) decision to marry a man lower than his caste and thereby it had tarnished his image in the society.
According to the wife, a prosecution witness, of the appellant, he used to feel that the community people of his caste had not accepted him, and he was being defamed in the society because of his daughter's inter-caste marriage. She further stated, though appellant used to visit the house of his daughter, he had grouse against her for having married out of their caste. She had further deposed that appellant strangulated the deceased with the string of her petticoat which he had carried and the same was handed over by her to the police.
“The sentence of death penalty imposed by the courts below under Section 302 is converted to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment without remission. It is made clear that appellant-accused shall not be entitled to make any representation for remission till he completes 20 years of actual rigorous imprisonment”, said the apex court.
The incident had occurred in 2013. The Bombay High Court on August 6, 2019, confirmed the judgement and order of death sentence awarded by the trial court for the offences punishable under Section 302, Section 316 (10 years rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs.5,000/-) and Section 364 (life imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code. The appellant moved the apex court against the high court order.
