Courts never considered whether the condemned man could reform, the Review Bench observed

The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted the death penalty of a man who murdered six of a family, including children, in Kerala on the ground that none of the courts which heard the case bothered to examine the probability of his “reform or rehabilitation and social reintegration” into the society.

A three-judge Review Bench led by Justice Madan B. Lokur commuted the death penalty of M.A. Antony to life imprisonment after setting aside its own judgment. The Review Bench said none of the courts, right from the trial court to the Supreme Court, gave a thought to the possibility that he could be reformed.

“There is no meaningful discussion on why, if at all, the appellant [Antony] could not be reformed or rehabilitated,” Justice Lokur observed.

M.A. Antony, represented by advocate Manoj George, murdered the family in January 2001 after they refused to lend him money to travel to the Gulf for a job.

The Review Bench held that Antony was financially in dire straits and had gone to the house in the hope of getting some money. But met with refusal, he decided to “kill all of them”.

The Bench held that though the socio-economic condition of a convict is not a factor for disproving his guilt, it is a factor that must be taken into consideration for the purposes of awarding him an appropriate sentence.

Justice Lokur, writing the verdict for a Bench comprising Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta, however, did not agree with the submissions by advocate Manoj George, for Antony, that a condemned man’s life should be spared solely on the ground that he had spent years in the death row, waiting for the noose.

“There are a number of cases where convicts have been on death row for more than six years and if a standard period was to be adopted, perhaps each and every person on death row might have to be given the benefit of commutation of death sentence to one of life imprisonment,” Justice Lokur observed.

The Review Bench agreed that there was no material to back the State of Kerala’s claim that Antony was a “hardened criminal”. We accept that socio-economic factors must be taken into consideration while awarding a sentence particularly the ground realities relating to access to justice and remedies to justice that are not easily available to the poor and the needy, the Bench observed.

The Bench said the courts should be mindful whether a death row convict from a poor background is getting adequate legal representation. “The poor are more often than not at the receiving end in access to justice and access to the remedies available,” the Justice Lokur observed.

The Supreme Court said quality legal aid to the disadvantaged and weaker sections of society is an area that requires great and urgent attention and we hope that a vigorous beginning is made in this direction in the new year.