Supreme Court Upholds Conviction Of Woman Accused In Her Fiancé's Murder Case; Grants Time To Seek Pardon
The Supreme Court remarked that the voice of a young ambitious girl, muffled by a forced family decision, created the fiercest of turmoil in her mind.
Justice M.M. Sundresh, Justice Aravind Kumar, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a woman who was accused of being involved in murder of her fiancé in the year 2003 but has also granted her time to seek pardon.
A batch of Criminal Appeals were filed by the accused persons, against the Judgment of the Karnataka High Court, by which their conviction was upheld for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).
The two-Judge Bench comprising Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Aravind Kumar observed, “The appellants, who committed the offence with adrenaline pumping in their veins, have now reached the middle age. Two out of the four accused persons were teenagers at the time of occurrence, while A-4 had barely crossed that phase. A-3 was a man aged 28 years, and was recently married with one child. As a Court, we seek to view the matter from a different perspective, only for the purpose of giving a new lease of life to the appellants who have committed a heinous crime, notwithstanding the availability of other alternative avenues to resolve the problems faced by A-4. We have also been informed that they have not been put to adverse notice thereafter.”
The Bench added that their conduct in the prison is also not adverse and they were not born as criminals, but it was an error of judgment through a dangerous adventure which led to the commission of a heinous crime.
Senior Advocates Ranjit Kumar, S. Nagamuthu, Siddhartha Dave, and R. Nedumaran appeared on behalf of the Appellants while Additional Advocate General (AAG) Muhammed Ali Khan and Senior Advocate Tomy Sebastian appeared on behalf of the Respondents.
Facts of the Case
During the month of December 2003, the Appellant-accused (A-4), a young girl aged 20 years, was studying in the 5th semester of integrated course B.A. LL.B. at a law college in Bengaluru. PW-10 was her father and an Advocate, PW-12 was her mother, and A-1 was a student from the same college as A-4, studying in the 1st semester. PW-22 was his father who was working as a Labour Officer and A-3 was a young man aged 28 years, who had been recently married and had a child. PW-14 was his father and PW-13 was his wife. A-3 and A-1 were cousins, as the sister of PW-14 was the mother of A-1. A-2 was a teenager aged about 19 years and PW-17 was his father. The deceased was a young man aged 26 years, working as a software engineer at Intel. PW-6 was his father and PW-5 was his elder brother.
A-4 and her family, along with the deceased and his family were residents of the same locality and considering the long-standing cordial relations between the two families, the parents of A-4 extended a proposal to the parents of the deceased in October 2003 for her marriage with the deceased. Both the families consented to the same in November 2003 and fixed the date of the engagement ceremony as November 30, 2003. Accordingly, the engagement took place and the marriage was decided to be solemnized in April 2004. Two days after the engagement, on the evening of December 3, 2003, A-4 asked the deceased to take her for dinner to a hotel, to which he agreed. On their way back from the hotel, they stopped at the “Air View Point” to watch the landing of aeroplanes. Allegedly, at that time, the deceased received fatal injuries on his head at the hands of an unknown assailant, who fled after inflicting the injuries using a steel rod.
A-4 shifted the deceased to the backseat of a car with the help of passers-by and admitted him in the hospital. She informed PW-10 about the occurrence and thereafter, PW-5 took his parents and the A-4’s mother to the hospital. Next morning, the deceased was declared dead. Hence, an FIR was registered and upon investigating, A-1 to A-4 were arrested. As per the prosecution case, A-4 was not willing to get married to the deceased and thus, expressed her grievance to A-1, who sought help from A-3 who roped A-2 to eliminate deceased to stop marriage. The Trial Court convicted the Appellants-accused under Section 120-B IPC and sentenced them to undergo life imprisonment. A-2 alone was convicted and sentenced to life under Section 302 IPC and A-4 was convicted under Section 201 IPC and sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment of 3 years. The High Court modified the conviction to one under Section 302 read with Section 120-B of the IPC. Being aggrieved, the Appellants approached the Apex Court.
Reasoning
The Supreme Court in the above regard, remarked, “The voice of a young ambitious girl, muffled by a forced family decision, created the fiercest of turmoil in her mind. This, backed by an unholy alliance of a mental rebellion and wild romanticism, led to the tragic murder of an innocent young man, while simultaneously destroying the lives of three others.”
The Court said that the breakdown of social norms contributes to a deviant behaviour, especially when individuals lack clear moral guidance from their communities.
“A mere punishment per se would not constitute a remedy for an act of crime. It might change the offender’s legal or social status, but would not be sufficient to address the root cause of his actions or remove the psychological and emotional factors that made him commit the crime”, it further noted.
Conduct of A-4
The Court was of the view that the conduct of A-4 is rather strange for a person who was continuously in touch with A-1 by way of numerous calls/SMSes on a daily basis not only during the period when her marriage proposal with the deceased was under consideration, but also after getting engaged to him.
“Secondly, we also find her conduct to be unnatural on the day of the incident, as she was constantly communicating with A-1 when she had gone out for dinner with her then fiancé, the deceased. However, she consciously stopped communicating with A-1 immediately after the incident took place. Even when her fiancé was on his deathbed, A-4 was communicating with A-1 and such conduct of hers is inconsistent with her innocence and speaks volumes about their questionable relationship. Thirdly, we also find that A-4, has caused destruction of evidence in order to screen herself and the others from punishment as all the messages in the phone recovered from A-4, especially the ones exchanged on the day of the incident, were found to be deleted”, it added.
The Court said that despite being in close proximity of the deceased at the time of occurrence, it is rather strange to note that A-4 was left completely unscathed, despite her stand that both of them were attacked, while the deceased received as many as six injuries.
“The said fact shows the complicity of A-4 in the crime, especially when the defence has failed to establish any other motive for the homicide of the deceased. … Therefore, on the facts assessed above, we find that a case has been made out for confirming the conviction of the appellants. We are inclined to hold so, notwithstanding our disapproval of the evidence adduced by the prosecution, including the testimonies of PW-8, PW-11, PW-15 and PW-16”, it held.
Furthermore, the Court observed that A-4 has also engaged in the destruction of evidence, in order to screen herself and the others from legal punishment.
“As we are satisfied with the adequacy of the evidence on record, though for different reasons, we are inclined to uphold the conviction and sentence rendered by the High Court in the impugned judgment. Accordingly, the appeals stand dismissed by confirming the conviction of the appellants rendered by the High Court under Section 302 read with Section 120-B of the IPC and additionally, Section 201 of the IPC for A-4 alone. The sentence of life imprisonment imposed upon them also stands confirmed”, it held.
Conclusion
The Court took note of the fact that A-4 was unable to make a decision for herself, despite being an individual who had attained majority.
“Having said so, we cannot condone her action as it resulted in the loss of an innocent life of a young man. We would only state at this juncture, that A-4 was made to commit this offence by adopting the wrong course of action in order to address her problem. Years have rolled on since the occurrence of the crime, which was in 2003”, it added.
The Court said that it is difficult to decide at this stage who influenced the other, although there is a clear meeting of minds. In light of the same, the Court decided to facilitate the Appellants’ right to seek pardon by permitting them to file appropriate Petitions before the Governor of Karnataka.
“We would only request the constitutional authority to consider the same, which we hope and trust would be done by taking note of the relevant circumstances governing the case. … Accordingly, we grant eight weeks’ time from the date of this judgment, for the appellants to file appropriate petitions seeking to invoke the power of pardon under Article 161 of the Constitution. Till these petitions are duly considered and decided, the appellants shall not be arrested and their sentence shall remain suspended”, it directed and concluded.
Accordingly, the Apex Court dismissed the Appeals with the aforesaid liberty.
Cause Title- Shubha @ Shubhashankar v. State of Karnataka & Anr. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 830)
Appearance:
Appellants: Senior Advocates Ranjit Kumar, S. Nagamuthu, Siddhartha Dave, R. Nedumaran, Jayant K. Sud, AORs P. Soma Sundaram, T. V. Ratnam, Ranjeeta Rohatgi, Ankur S. Kulkarni, Advocates Y Arunagiri, Shreyas Kaushal, M Sathishkumar, Nirnimesh Dube, Shreeyash Lalit, Sonia Dube, Lavam Tyagi, Himanshu Vats, S. K. Kulkarni, M. Gireesh Kumar, Uditha Chakravarthy, Debdeep Banerjee, Kartik Jasra, Prannit Stefano, and Shayal Anand.
Respondents: AAG Muhammed Ali Khan, Senior Advocates Tomy Sebastian, Kiran Suri, AORs Vipin Gupta, V. N. Raghupathy, Advocates S.J. Amith, Punith B, Alwyn Sebastian, Aishwarya Kumar, Omar Hoda, Eesha Bakshi, Kamran Khan, Arjun Sharma, Jayanti Singh, and Gurbani Bhatia.
