Criminal Appeal no- 1523 of 2019
Supreme court of India
BENCH: Hon’ble Mr Rohiton Fali Nariman, Hon’ble Mr R. Subhash Reddy, Hon’ble Mr Surya Kant
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 03rd Oct 2019
RELEVANT SECTIONS:
- Section 302 IPC (Punishment for murder)
- Section 376-A IPC (commit rape)
- Section 376(2) I IPC (commit rape on a woman under the age of 16 years)
- Section 376(2)j IPC (commit rape on a woman unable to give consent)
- Section 376(2)m IPC (cause grievous bodily hurt while committing rape)
- Section 376(2)n IPC (commit rape repeatedly on the same woman)
- Section 366 IPC (kidnaps or abducts any woman with intent to rape)
- Section 201 IPC (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence )
BACK STORY
A 13-year girl was kidnapped, raped and killed by throttling, after which her half-naked body was thrown in a dry well. The name of the victim was not disclosed under section 228-A of IPC. Purushottam Kaurav, the grandfather of the deceased, filed a missing report concerning the deceased on 22nd May 2015 at Gotitoria Police station. The deceased went to her grandparent house at Baglai on 21st May 2015 along with her mother and her 11-year-old brother. On the same day at around 3 pm, she went missing from her home. The family searched everywhere including her maternal home in Chargaon and her aunt’s place in Aadegaon but she was nowhere to be found. After the search, while her mother was returning to Baglai, she identified deceased salwar and one sleeper near the water channel, after which the FIR was made.
During investigation blood samples of suspects were taken and sent for DNA profiling. Based on the FSL DNA report the accused was arrested on 20th July 2015. PW2 said that the accused and his wife had visited her house on 21st May and asked her to return the borrowed money. Sharada said that he had spotted deceased with the accused the same day after 3 pm. The deceased body was found by Hargovind Kaurav in a dry well. All the findings and evidence indicated towards kidnapping, rape, murder and destruction of evidence.
FORENSIC REPORT
The decomposing body of the deceased was sent to Government hospital, Chicli, was the postmortem was conducted by Dr Kinshu Jaiswal. The report showed multiple bodily injuries, ligature marks on the neck and ruptured hymen indicating rape and death by throttling. The vaginal swab(Ex. A), salwar(Ex. B) and sleeper(Ex. C) were sent to FSL, Sagar for DNA profiling. On matching all suspects sample only the sample of the accused matched with the DNA extracted from the deceased vaginal swab was stated in the report presented by Dr Pankaj Srivastava.
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. The culprit has imparted life imprisonment with no remission under section 363, 366, 376(2)i, 376(2)n, 376(2)j, 376(2)m, 376(A), 302 and 201 of IPC and alternatively under POCSO act.