No Evidence On Record That Convicts Can't Be Reformed Or Rehabilitated: Chhattisgarh High Court Commutes Death Penalty In Minor's Rape & Murder Case

The Chhattisgarh High Court while commuting the death sentence in a rape and murder case, emphasized that the Court must focus on considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances for individualized sentencing outcome.

The Court was deciding Criminal Appeals filed by the accused persons against the Judgment of conviction and Order of sentence passed by the Additional Sessions Judge.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Bibhu Datta Guru observed, “Rather than applying strict classification of the type of offence that warrant death sentence, the Court must focus on considering the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and arrive at individualized sentencing outcome on case to case basis.”

The Bench said that though it shocks the conscious of the society at large, but, yet, in the facts and circumstances of the case, considering the age of the accused and upon thoughtful consideration, extreme sentence of death penalty is not warranted.

Senior Advocate Sharmila Singhai and Advocate Dheeraj Kumar Wankhede represented the Appellants while Deputy Advocate General (DAG) Shashank Thakur represented the Respondent.

Facts of the Case

The victim/deceased ‘B’ who was a minor aged about 16 years, was the daughter of deceased ‘A’ and deceased ‘C’ was a minor child aged about 4 years and grand-daughter of deceased ‘A’. As per the prosecution case, the deceased persons ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ along with their entire family used to live at the house of the Appellant-Santram and graze his cattle. In lieu of doing the said work, an agreement was made for Rs. 8,000/- per year and 10 kg rice per month. Allegedly, Santra, did not pay the dues for the entire year and had given only Rs. 600/- for grazing the cattle and only 10 kg of rice was given per month. When asked for the remaining money, he used to evade the question. In January 2021, the wife of deceased ‘A’ had gone to Santram to settle the accounts for grazing the cattle and said that they will go back to their own home. He gave Rs. 600/- cash, some pulses, rice, and clothes and then they came back saying that they were going to their home. On the day of incident, the deceased persons were at the bus stand of the village when Santram allegedly conspired with his accomplice and other accused persons and reached the bus stand.

They accused persons the deceased and their other heirs that they will drop them on a motorcycle and stopped them from boarding the bus and took them away in their motorcycles. Santram allegedly took them along village, after that he sent the deceased A’s wife/complainant ahead on a motorcycle but stopped deceased ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. It was further alleged that the accused persons stopped on the way and drank alcohol and made the deceased drink alcohol and they executed the common objective under the pre-planned conspiracy and took the victim/deceased ‘B’ to the incident site and raped her. When deceased ‘A’ opposed this, he was beaten with sticks and stones and done to death. The victim/deceased ‘B’ was also assaulted by stones and left her thinking that she was dead. The deceased ‘C’ was also killed by slamming her on a stone. Resultantly, a case was registered against the accused persons. The Trial Court convicted the accused persons and awarded death sentence. Hence, the case was before the High Court.

Reasoning

The High Court in the above regard, noted, “The learned trial Court has not taken into consideration the probability of the convict/appellants to be reformed and rehabilitated and has only taken into consideration the crime and the manner in which it was committed and has not given effective opportunity of hearing on the question of sentence to the appellants. No evidence was brought on record on behalf of the prosecution to prove to the Court that the convict/appellants cannot be reformed or rehabilitated, by producing material about their conduct in jail and no opportunity of hearing was given to the convict/appellants to produce evidence in that respect.”

The Court added that no jail offences(s) has been said to have been committed by the accused/Appellants, though they have committed the offence of murder of three innocent persons out of which one was a minor girl of about 16 years and other was a minor girl of about 4 years.

“The minor girl aged 16 years was brutally raped before she was done to death which is barbaric, inhuman, heinous and extremely brutal. The murder has been done in a brutal manner by smashing the heads with stones. These are the incriminating circumstances, but there is no evidence on record that the convict/appellants cannot be reformed or rehabilitated. No criminal antecedents have been shown against them”, it further said.

The Court was of the opinion that this is not the “rarest of rare case” in which major penalty of sentence of death awarded has to be confirmed and hence, imprisonment for life would be completely adequate and would meet the ends of justice.

“Accordingly, we direct commutation of death sentence into imprisonment for life. We further direct that the life sentence must extend to the imprisonment for remainder of natural life of the appellants”, it directed.

Accordingly, the High Court commuted the death sentence of the accused persons.

Cause Title- In Reference of State of Chhattisgarh v. Santram Manjhwar & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025:CGHC:22996-DB)

Appearance:

Appellants: Senior Advocate Sharmila Singhai, Advocates Dheeraj Kumar Wankhede, and Chetan Singh Chauhan.

Respondent: DAG Shashank Thakur

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