SC judgment

session court

Five people from a family, including children, are murdered. One of them, a minor girl, is gang-raped.convicts six people of this heinous crime and sentences all of them to death. In appeal, the Bombay High Court confirms the death sentence of three of them but sentences the remaining to life imprisonment. Both the state of Maharashtra and the accused file appeals in the Supreme Court of India. The state of Maharashtra claims that the reduction in the sentence of three people from death to life imprisonment is incorrect. The Supreme Court rules in favour of the state and sentences all six accused to death. The accused file a review petition, which is also dismissed.By this time, the case has been adjudicated a total of four times by three different courts – the session court, the High Court and the Supreme Court. All courts have reached the same conclusion regarding the guilt of the accused. The accused stand sentenced to death.At this point there is a twist in the story. In an unrelated case – Mohd. Arif vs. Registrar – the Supreme Court has decided that where accused is/are being sentenced to death, review petition must be disposed of only after oral arguments are heard. Before this judgment, all review petitions were decided without oral arguments. Court has also held that in cases where death sentence has been awarded but not executed, and review has been dismissed, it is open to those convicted to get review re-opened for oral hearing.This aforementioned judgment has come at a time when the six accused have not been hung yet. They have, in fact, now filed a petition praying that their review petition is reheard with oral arguments. The case has therefore come under adjudication by the Supreme Court of India for technically the third time.So what has the court found? That three of the accused, who were sentenced to life by the high court and then to death by the apex court, were not represented by any lawyer when appeal was heard by the Supreme Court.Pause here and read that sentence again. In the absence of any lawyer on behalf of the three accused, the Supreme Court, while hearing an appeal in which it awarded death to six people, appointed an amicus and decided the case on the same day. Let me make this clear. The Supreme Court of India appointed an amicus lawyer and gave the judgment the same day, so there was no opportunity for the lawyer to even reach out to the accused, who were then sentenced to death. A sentence which would have been executed if not for a judgment in an unrelated case.The apex court decided to re-hear the entire case. What did it find now? First, there was no forensic evidence to prove the guilt of the accused. Secondly, the DNA samples were collected, sent to the lab, but the report of this test was never presented by the police before any court. Why? In the court’s words: “For the obvious reason that it would have exonerated” the accused. Thirdly, multiple and substantial contradictions in the testimony of the so called ‘eyewitness’ who by own admission had fainted during the commission of the crime. Last, one of the eye-witnesses initially identified four persons from an album of notorious criminals kept at the police station, but the police never investigated these four men.The court acquitted all six. It directed that all of them be paid Rs 5 lakh each by the state. It directed the state to initiate an investigation against the four people identified initially by a witness.Imagine if this case – gang-rape, murder and robbery – was the subject of primetime television, the collective conscience of the Indian public would have ached. Any political party which would have ensured swift execution of the death sentence would have received applause and votes for being ‘strong’.In 2009, the Supreme Court of India admitted that it may have wrongly sentenced a total of 15 people to death in 15 years. A study in 2016 by NLU Delhi found that 76 per cent of the people on death row surveyed by them were either lower caste or religious minorities. About 24.5 per cent were SC/ST. Out of that 24.5 per cent, 85 per cent were economically vulnerable. The accused in this case? All six were “very poor labourers” and belonged to nomadic tribes. Quite the co-incidence, no?Three courts, including the Supreme Court and multiple judges, were about to end six lives after having heard the matter multiple times. The police and the lawyers of the state were complicit. Ask yourself, after reading this story, if the collective conscience that you are part of, should be comfortable with anyone being sentenced to death.