NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered death penalty to a man who murdered a seven-year-old boy after kidnapping him for ransom, justifying the capital punishment on several grounds, including that killing the sole male child meant that the family lineage could not be carried forward.

Citing disruption of family lineage as one of the seven aggravating grounds why they thought the convict deserved no leniency, a bench of Justices P Sathasivam and J S Khehar said, “The choice of kidnapping the particular child for ransom was well planned and consciously motivated. The parents of the deceased had four children — three daughters and one son. Kidnapping the only male child was to induce maximum fear in the mind of his parents. Purposefully killing the sole male child has grave repercussions for the parents of the deceased.”

The bench continued, “Agony for parents for the loss of their male child, who would have carried further the family lineage, and is expected to see them through their old age, is unfathomable. Extreme misery caused to the aggrieved party certainly adds to the aggravating circumstances.”

Just a week ago, a bench of Justices Sathasivam and F M I Kalifulla had commuted the capital punishment of a man convicted for raping his minor daughter on the complaint of his wife. On release from jail on parole, he axed his wife and daughter to death. Both the trial court and high court had given death to the man.

In the kidnapping-cum-murder case, Justices Sathasivam and Khehar on Tuesday said they had failed to find any mitigating circumstances to differ from the orders of the Cuddalore trial court and Madras High Court awarding death penalty to Sundararajan who kidnapped the seven-year-old Suresh.

The bench found that Sundararajan had used his familiarity with the Class II boy to convince him to accompany him from the school bus stop by telling him that his mother and grandmother were admitted to hospital.

He had demanded Rs 5 lakh ransom but when there was delay in payment, he strangulated the boy, packed the body in a gunny bag and threw it in Meerankulam tank. The school bag was recovered from the house of the accused.

The trial court took less than two years to record conviction and award sentence. The HC took just two months to confirm the sentence on September 30, 2010. And in two years, the Supreme Court gave finality to the conviction and death sentence.

The court saw no possibility of the convict being reformed. “The manner in which the child was murdered, and the approach and method adopted by the accused, disclose the traits of outrageous criminality in the behaviour of the accused. The child was first strangulated to death, the body tied in a gunny bag, and thrown into a tank in a well thought out and planned manner. This approach of the accused reveals a brutal mindset of the highest order,” said Justice Khehar, who authored the judgment for the bench.

Taking into account the familiarity of the accused to the child, the bench said, “Murder was therefore committed, not of a stranger, but of a child with whom the accused was acquainted. This conduct of the accused places the facts of this case in the abnormal and heinous category.

“Kidnapping of the child was committed with the motive of carrying home a ransom, On account of the non-payment of ransom, a minor child’s murder was committed. This fact demonstrates that the accused had no value for human life. The instant circumstances demonstrate extreme mental perversion not worthy of human beings.”

Taking note of all these factors, the bench said, “We have no choice but to affirm the death penalty imposed on the accused by the high court.”

