Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sanjay Karol, Justice Sandeep Mehta, Supreme Court
Majesty Of Constitution Lies Not In Might Of State But In Its Restraint: Supreme Court Sets Aside Death Sentence In 4-Yr-Old Girl’s Rape & Murder Case
|The Supreme Court said that in the narrow space between guilt and the gallows, a robust Constitution demands that we pause, look again, and ask whether the process itself has measured up to the high bar that humanity and the rule of law together set.
The Supreme Court has set aside the death sentence of a man who was accused of raping and killing a four-year-old minor girl in the year 2008 in Nagpur, Maharashtra.
A Writ Petition was filed by the accused under Article 32 of the Constitution, challenging the continuing validity of the sentence of death affirmed against him and seeking its reconsideration in the light of subsequent legislative and judicial developments, particularly with reference to the guidelines laid down in the case of Manoj and Others v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2023).
The three-Judge Bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sanjay Karol, and Justice Sandeep Mehta remarked, “The majesty of our Constitution lies not in the might of the State but in its restraint. When the Court contemplates the ultimate punishment, i.e. the Capital Punishment, it enters a domain where justice must be tempered by conscience and guided by the unwavering promises of equality, dignity and fair procedure. A Constitution that proclaims liberty and dignity as its first commitments cannot permit the State to end a human life unless every safeguard of fairness has been honoured and every civilising impulse of the law has been heard. The question is never only what penalty a crime might merit, it is first whether the machinery of the Republic has honoured every safeguard that makes punishment lawful in a constitutional democracy.”
The Bench added that in the narrow space between guilt and the gallows, a robust Constitution demands that we pause, look again, and ask whether the process itself has measured up to the high bar that humanity and the rule of law together set.
Senior Advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan appeared on behalf of the Petitioner while Additional Solicitor General (ASG) K.M. Nataraj and Advocate General (AG) Birendra Saraf appeared on behalf of the Respondents.
Brief Facts
As per the prosecution case, the Petitioner-accused allegedly lured a four-year-old girl (child victim) away from her home in Wadi, Nagpur, transported her to a secluded spot, thereafter, sexually assaulted and strangled her to death and then attempted to conceal the body among nearby shrubs. An FIR was registered and he was arrested. A chargesheet was filed for the offences under Sections 363, 367, 376(2)(f), 302, and 201 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC). The Trial Court convicted the accused and imposed a death sentence on him. During the original trial, the accused, who was unable to afford private counsel, was represented by legal-aid counsel whose absence on crucial dates resulted in four material witnesses remaining un-cross-examined.
In confirmation proceedings, the Bombay High Court set aside the conviction and sentence on the ground that the accused had been denied an effective defence, and remanded the matter for the limited purpose of cross-examining the said witnesses. The Trial Court again convicted him and re-imposed death sentence. The High Court affirmed the same and the Supreme Court dismissed his Appeal by confirming the death sentence. Review Petition was then filed but of no avail and then a Mercy Petition was filed, which was also rejected. Thereafter, in a Suo Motu Writ Petition, the Constitution Bench reference was made and the Petitioner’s case was cited as illustrative of inconsistencies in existing practice. Hence, the Petitioner approached the Apex Court invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 32.
Court’s Observations
The Supreme Court in view of the above facts, observed, “… death-sentence cases stand apart because the punishment extinguishes the right to life in an irreversible way, and that singular feature obliges this Court to keep the door of constitutional review open even after the ordinary appellate and review avenues have closed. Article 32 of the Constitution of India, therefore, remains available whenever a supervening fact, such as inordinate delay, emergent mental illness, or a parity-based anomaly, or a subsequently recognised procedural guarantee throws the legitimacy of a capital sentence into doubt.”
The Court said that the power to intervene under Article 32 of the Constitution is meant to prevent the Constitution from being stymied by formal finality when a human life hangs in the balance.
“In the present case, where the petitioner seeks only the enforcement of a procedural safeguard now recognised as integral to Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India, and where no equally efficacious alternative remedy exists, the invocation of our extraordinary jurisdiction is both appropriate and justified”, it noted.
The Court reaffirmed that the goal of reformation presupposes that the legal system will not foreclose the prospect of moral regeneration unless every procedural assurance of accuracy and fairness has first been scrupulously observed.
“We cannot overlook that the machinery which feeds the death-penalty system is itself fragile. Investigations often rely on confessions extracted in opacity, recoveries whose provenance is contested and forensic material of doubtful rigour. When such evidence is filtered through an overburdened trial process, the possibility of wrongful conviction can never be dismissed as a remote abstraction. An irreversible penalty grafted onto a fallible process endangers the very core of Article 21 of the Constitution of India”, it remarked.
The Court enunciated that the punishment in a Constitutional democracy must ultimately reflect the moral trajectory of the society it serves and that every person, even one who has done great wrong, still carries a basic human dignity.
“This belief does not excuse crime but it simply means the State should keep open, wherever possible, the chance for an offender to change. It is our belief that moving from pure retribution to genuine reform is not an act of undue leniency but it is a statement of faith in the human capacity for improvement”, it added.
The Court further held that Article 32 of the Constitution empowers the Court in cases related to capital punishment to reopen the sentencing stage where the accused has been condemned to death penalty without ensuring that the guidelines mandated in Manoj case were followed.
“We add, however, a word of caution. Article 32 of the Constitution of India is the bedrock of constitutional remedies, but its exceptional scope cannot be permitted to become a routine pathway for reopening concluded matters. Reopening will be reserved only for those cases where there is a clear, specific breach of the new procedural safeguards as these breaches are so serious that, if left uncorrected, they would undermine the accused person’s basic rights to life, dignity and fair process”, it concluded.
Justice Karol’s Concurring Opinion
In his concurring opinion, Justice Sanjay Karol said, “I have perused the erudite opinion by my esteemed MyLord, Vikram Nath, J,. The scholarly lucidity with its empathetic and farsighted understanding of the Constitution and the values it espouses has prompted my whole-hearted concurrence. However, considering the peculiarity and the importance of the questions before us, I desire to pen down a few thoughts of my own.”
He observed that Article 32 has pride of place - a Jewel on the Crown of the Justice Delivery System - in the Indian Constitutional scheme and is unquestionably available to even those who are serving sentences for the most heinous offences.
“The end result of this petition being held maintainable is not meant to give a way out to persons convicted under a procedure established by law to approach this Court seeking to reopen the conclusions arrived at properly or simply to hide behind ongoing litigation in order to delay the inevitable carrying out of the sentence. Such a petition has been held to be maintainable in the specific facts of this case, where a subsequent development in law granted a benefit to a convict, and there was no other avenue available to him. We are informed that in all, there are only 7 such convicts, sentenced to be hanged, seeking the benefit of Manoj (supra)”, he also noted.
Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the Writ Petition, set aside the death sentence, and remitted the case for a fresh hearing on sentence alone.
Cause Title- Vasanta Sampat Dupare v. Union of India & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1043)
Appearance:
Petitioner: Senior Advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan, AOR Prerna Priyadarshini, Advocates Shourya Dasgupta, Trisha Chandran, Pradyut Kashyap, Shreya Rastogi, Manasa Ramakrishna, Syed Faraz Alam, Atharva Gaur, and Aayushman Aggarwal.
Respondents: ASG K.M. Nataraj, AG Birendra Saraf, AORs Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Advocates Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna, Adarsh Dubey, Vatsal Joshi, Sanjay Kr. Tyagi, Anuj Srinivas Udupa, Agrmaa Singh, and Raman Yadav.