Supreme Court Commutes Death Penalty Of Man Guilty Of Killing Daughter

The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted the death penalty of a man, who murdered his pregnant daughter for performing an inter-caste marriage against her family's will and sentenced him to 20 years in jail instead.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai, Aravind Kumar and K V Viswanathan upheld the conviction of Eknath Kisan Kumbharkar from Nashik district in Maharashtra for murdering his daughter while setting aside his death penalty.

"The order of conviction as recorded by the trial court and confirmed by the high court of judicature at Bombay vide order dated August 6, 2019 in confirmation case…is affirmed. However, the sentence of death penalty imposed by the courts below under Section 302 is converted to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment without remission," held the bench.

The top court clarified that Kumbharkar will not be entitled to make any representation for remission till he completes 20 years of actual rigorous imprisonment.

After going through the convict's reports, the bench said, "We find that the present case would not fall in the category of 'rarest of rare cases' wherein it can be held that imposition of the death penalty is the only alternative. We are of the considered opinion that the present case would fall in the category of middle path as held by this court in various judgments." On April 25, the top court had called for the convict's prison conduct reports from Yerawada Central Jail, apart from the probation officer's report, his psychological evaluation and mitigation investigation report.

The bench observed that appellant hails from a poor nomadic community in Maharashtra.

"He had an alcoholic father and suffered parental neglect and poverty...Neither the appellant nor any of his family members have any criminal antecedent. It cannot be presumed that the appellant is a hardened criminal who cannot be reformed. Hence, it cannot be said that there is no possibility of reformation, even though the appellant has committed a gruesome crime," the bench noted.

According to the prosecution, Kumbharkar had murdered his pregnant daughter Pramila on June 28, 2013 for marrying a man from a different caste against the father's wishes.

The bench said the man was 38-years old at the time of the crime without any criminal antecedents and underlined the various other mitigating circumstances in his favour.

"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 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. Considering these factors....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," it held.

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, it added.

"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," the top court held further.

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