SC commutes death of man who killed kin
The Supreme Court has commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to a man for killing his wife and two sons, saying he had killed his family on account of abject poverty and is not a danger to society.
A bench of justices S.J. Mukhopadhaya and Kurian Joseph said the condemned convict had intended to wipe out the whole family including himself on account of abject poverty and these aspects were not considered by the courts below while awarding him death sentence. “It has come in evidence that the appellant suffered from economic and psychic compulsions. The possibility of reforming and rehabilitating the accused cannot be ruled out. The accused had no prior criminal record. On the facts available to the court, it can be safely said that the accused is not likely to be menace or threat or danger to society. There is nothing to show that he had any previous criminal background,” the bench said. The bench also said that in cases of murder, life imprisonment is the rule and death penalty an exception and courts should also consider socio-economic compulsions while awarding the extreme sentence.
to a convict. “We may note that the rule is life imprisonment for murder, and death is the exception for which special reasons are to be stated,” the court said. “Poverty, socio-economic, psychic compulsions, undeserved adversities in life are some of the mitigating factors which are also required to be considered, in addition to criteria laid down in its two landmark verdicts on death penalty,” it said.
The apex court in its judgement mentioned the circumstances under which the convict had killed his wife and two sons and also tried to murder his daughter. Giving the sequence of incidents, the bench mentioned that he stopped short of killing his daughter when she questioned why he was doing so after which he gave water to the injured daughter. “It so happened by chance that despite the stab injuries inflicted
on the daughter, she managed to weepingly question her father why he was acting in such a manner. The change of heart is also discernible from the fact that he had given water to the injured daughter. “After this, he no longer used the weapon for finishing her. He tried once again by taking her to his lap and stifling her with the aid of a pillow. However, as can be seen from his own statement, he could not finish killing her. Thereafter, he went straight to the police station and gave a statement of what he had done,” the judgement said.
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