Criminal Appeal no- 1174 of 2019
Supreme Court of India
BENCH: Hon’ble Mr Surya Kant, Hon’ble Mr Rohinton Fali Nariman, Hon’ble Mr Sanjiv Khanna
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 7th Nov 2019
RELEVANT SECTIONS:
- Section 302 IPC (Punishment for murder)
- Section 376(2)g IPC (committing gang-rape)
- Section 201 IPC (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence)
- Section 376(2)f IPC (commit rape on a woman when she is under the age of twelve years)
BACK STORY
A ten-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother were kidnapped in the morning of 29th Oct 2010, while they were waiting for their school commute in Coimbatore. Their parents were informed by the cab driver about the missing children, after which they started their search. After a failed search they informed the police and reported an FIR. The first information about the missing children was received when their school bags with their id cards were found in the Axhiyar project canal by Anbu. One of the employs of the cab service named Mohankrishnan had borrowed a Maruti Omni car after he was removed from the job. At around 9:45 pm, Mohankrishnan came to return the car and confessed to Anbu about the kidnapping. Anbu immediately informed the police after which the accused was arrested.
Sarvanan, Forensic expert examined the car and collected evidence including undergarments, hairs, saliva and other strains for examination. The accused blood sample and clothes were also collected. The children bodies were found floating in the canal on 30th Oct 2010 in rigour Mortis state and were sent for postmortem. Manoharan the other culprit was arrested on 31st Oct 2010. Both the culprit had borrowed the school van and had picked the children in the morning around 7:50 am and take them to a remote location, where the girl child was raped. They then give the children cow dung mixed with milk, but the poison didn’t work, so to ensure their death, children were thrown in the canal.
FORENSIC REPORT
The postmortem report showed multiple injuries over the body with lacerated vagina and anus, which were the result of forceful penetration in the vagina. The report showed rape and death caused by drowning. The strain along with clothes and hair collected from the vehicle were sent to FSL for DNA profiling. The DNA profiling of semen strain was done to match the DNA of accused blood and was found to be positive. The chemical analysis showed the presence of cow dung poison.
JUDGEMENT
The trial court and the high court consider this case to be rare of rarest and had awarded death sentence to the culprit. He further appealed at the Supreme court, where his appeal was rejected. The court concluded that the crime committed was fully planned where the culprits have misused the society’s trust and the manner of crime was very brutal making it the actual example of rare of rarest doctrine. Thus the culprit was sentenced to death under section 302,201,376(2)g and 376(2)f of IPC.