Criminal Appeal no- 1210 of 2012
Supreme Court of India
BENCH: Hon’ble Mr P Sathasivam, Hon’ble Mr Ranjan Gogoi, Hon’ble Mr Shiva Kirti Singh
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 27th Feb 2014
RELEVANT SECTIONS:
- Section 302 IPC (Punishment for murder)
- Section 120B IPC (Punishment for criminal conspiracy)
BACK STORY
On 20th Dec 2003 the Superintendent of Police, sindhudurg received an anonymous letter about an unidentified body found in village Nandos. On searching a total of 10 dead bodies were recovered, seven on 20th, followed by two on 21st and one on 29th Dec 2003. along with these bodies clothes, personal belongings and two blood strained dairies were also recovered. The bodies were completely decomposed so postmortem was not an option. The bodies were sent to Miraj Medical college for forensic examination. The other evidence collected along with somebody organs were sent to Centre for DNA fingerprinting, Hyderabad and the skull sent to Bombay forensic lab for superimposition test.
The names mentioned in the diary along with the recent missing complaints helped in identification of the deceased. The accused Santosh Manohar Chavan was arrested on 22nd Dec 2003 followed by the arrest of all other accuse. they confessed that they lured different people that they would increase their money overnight and after taking people to isolated places robbed them and later killed them. They had robbed these people of Rs. 3,65,000/- and some gold.
FORENSIC REPORT
The handwriting expert examined the dairies and they were found to belong to Dada Saheb Chavan and Kerubhai Mali. The report from Miraj medical college showed that two of the deceased were shot dead, while others were killed using sword, rope and rod. The revolver recovered from the culprit were examined by ballistic experts to confirm the same. The DNA report from CDFD Hyderabad presented by Dr S. Pandurang Prasad helped in identification of each deceased along with the superimposition test. The blood strain from dairy was also matched with one of the accused.
JUDGEMENT
The trial court and the high court consider this case to be rare of rarest and had awarded death sentence to the culprits. He further appealed at the Supreme court, where his punishment was reduced. The court concluded that the crime committed was at a very young age and seeing all the circumstances life imprisonment is not unquestionable. Thus the culprits named, Santosh Manohar, Amit Ashok Shinde, Yogesh Madhukar and Mahesh Shinde were sentenced to life imprisonment under section 302 and 120B of IPC along with arms act.