Criminal Appeal no- 369 of 2006
Supreme court of India
BENCH: Hon’ble Mr K.S. Radhakrishnan, Hon’ble Mr A.K. Sikri
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 11th April 2014
RELEVANT SECTIONS:
- Section 302 IPC (Punishment for murder)
- Section 366 IPC (Punishment for kidnapping or abducting including woman)
- Section 394 IPC (voluntarily hurt in committing robbery)
- Section 411 IPC (dishonestly receiving stolen property)
BACK STORY
A 22-year-old girl named Diana Clare Routley, a New Zealander was gruesomely murdered on 10th Aug 1997 in Varanasi. She had come to India in 1997 as a tourist and was staying in Old Vishnu Guesthouse in Varanasi. She was about to board a train for Darjeeling from Catt station Varanasi on 10th Aug 1997 when she went missing. Her father, Allan Jack Routley, contacted the authorities and launched a missing complaint, suspecting her local guide named Dharma Dev Yadav under section 366 IPC.
The accused was arrested in 1998 and he confessed the murder along with the involvement of Kali Charan Yadav, Sindhu Harijan and Ram Karan Chauhan. He accompanied the investigator to Ghazipur and showed the place where Diana’s body was buried. She was killed by strangulation. The skeletal remains were sent for a postmortem on 20th Aug 1998.
The oral evidence of all witness confirmed that the accused was the last person to be seen with Diana. The accused took Diana to his native place stayed for a few days than committed murder and buried her body.
FORENSIC REPORT
The postmortem was done by a team of doctors, including Dr R.B. Singh, Dr S.K. Tripathi and Dr V.K. Gupta. The skeletal remains were examined to determine the age, sex and race of the body. It showed that the person was a young female with golden brown hair while the DNA samples collected from femur and humerus bone confirmed that the skeletal remains were that of Diana.
JUDGEMENT
The trial court followed by the high court considers this case to be rare of rarest and had awarded death sentence to the culprit. He further appealed at the Supreme court, where his sentence was reduced. Since the accused had no previous criminal records, lack of evidence and as the manner of killing was barbaric, so this is not considered as rare of rarest and the culprit was awarded rigorous imprisonment for 20 years under section 302, 366, 394 and 411 of IPC.