Raghubir Singh Vs. State of Haryana
[1974] INSC 28 (12 February 1974)
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
SARKARIA, RANJIT SINGH
CITATION: 1974 AIR 677 1974 SCR (3) 356 1975
SCC (3) 37
CITATOR INFO:
MV 1982 SC1325 (69)
ACT:
Murder--Death penalty when can be reduced to
life imprisonment.
HEADNOTE:
The appellant developed illicit intimacy with
the deceased.
When the deceased feigned pregnancy and
pressed him to marry her, he gave her a deadly poison mixed in milk. On the
death of the deceased he wrapped the dead body in a blanket and left it in a
railway compartment. He was convicted and sentenced to death.
On appeal to this Court on the question of
sentence
HELD : While murder in its aggravated form
and in the absence of extenuating factors connected with crime, criminal or
legal process, still is condignly visited with death penalty, a compassionate
alternative of life imprisonment in all other circumstances is gaining judicial
ground. [357 G-H] In the instant case a few ameliorative features fall to be
noticed since judicial temper has more components than indignation against
murder. The appellant is in his twenties, not irrelevant in considering death
sentence.
He was a married man. He was promiscuous with
women, a salacious sin for which the deceased was a contributory.
The latter's pressure to get him to marry her
must have planted the seed of murderous thought in him. He bargained for
romance, encouraged by the-victim but her pretended pregnancy upset the
appellant. Some planning and treachery have aggravated the crime. Yet another
circumstance is that the man was sentenced to death nearly two years ago and
the specter of death penalty must have tormented his soul.
Taken separately, none of these matters may
suffice to commute but the conspectus of factors, personal and social, tilt the
scales in favour of life term. L357 El
CRIMINAL, APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Criminal
Appeal No. 124 of 1973.
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and
order dated the 30th November, 1972 of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in
Criminal Appeal No. 632 of 1972 and Murder Ref. No. 27 of 1972.
Nuruddin Ahmed and S. K. Mehta, for the
appellant.
Gautam Goswami and R. N. Sachthey, for the
respondent.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
KRISHNA IYER, J. A young woman was vomitted into death by a young man by giving
her a cup of milk mixed with a lethal dose of stricnine. He, along with two
others, bundled the cadaver into a Delhibound train but the coach cleaner
discovered it, the police unearthed the crime, the court convicted the culprits
awarding capital sentence to the killer and lighter punishments to the two
accessories after the fact, under S. 201, I.P.C. Special leave has been granted
to the only appellant on the sole ground of sentence and so our scrutiny is
confined to the circumstances of the crime and criminal and the penological
propriety of inflicting the higher or lesser punishment.
357 Twenty six-years-old Raghubir Singh--the
appellant-was a lesser official in the Malaria Eradication Department in
Gorior, a village in Rajasthan. He became friends with a veterinary official,
Sri Sharma, P.W. 13, and by a concatenation of innocent circumstances the
appellant came into carnal comity with Kailashwati, the 2nd accused, a midwife
in a local hospital. Later, the appellant was transferred to a village
Mandhapia in the Family Planning Department where he came across Sushma Thomas,
a nurse in the same department. Prurient Raghubir picked up a liaison with this
malayalee belle older to him by five years and-going by the medical evidence,
not a virgin.
She seems to have feigned pregnancy probably
to force a matrimony for which Raghubir was reluctant. After many twists and
turns of events, on June 6, 1971, the appellant secured half a grain of
stricnine hydrochloride from Sharma, the friend, on the pretext that it was
needed for killing stray dogs. This Sharma's naivete in supplying poison looks
suspicious and it is for Government to look into, re- membering that he was
more than a dispensing chemist in this case. Anyway, the amorous pair spent the
night of the 10th June at the quarters of the 2nd accused, and the appellant
brought-milk for the deceased who consumed the cup of death.
After agonising hours of vomitting struggle,
she breathed her last, was wrapped in a blanket and given a railway burial.
The criminal act was treacherous murder and
deserved the sterner sentence. But a few ameliorative features fall to be
noticed since judicial temper has more components than indignation against
murder. The convict is in his twenties, not irrelevant in considering death
sentence. He is said to be a married man. He was promiscuous With women, a
salacious sin for which the deceased was a contributory.
The latter's pressure to get him to marry her
must have planted the seed of murderous thought in him. He bargained for
romance, encouraged by the victim but the pregnancy- though pretended-in a
society which views unmarried mothers as vicious upset the appellant. These
have no bearing on guilt at all but attenuate the lethal touch of the sentence.
Some planning and treachery have aggravated
the crime, which also must not be overlooked. Yet another circumstance. The man
was sentenced to death as early as 23rd May, 1972, and for twenty months the specter of death penalty must have tormented his soul. Taken separately, none
of these may suffice to commute but the conspectus of factors, personal and
social, tilt the scales in favour of a life term. We have in another case
discussed at some length how modern penology leans less towards death penalty
and the winds of criminological change blow over Indian statutory thought.
While murder in its aggravated form and in
the absence of extenuating factors connected with crime, criminal or legal
process, still is condignly visited with death penalty, a compassionate
alternative of life imprisonment in all other circumstances is gaining judicial
ground.. Taking an overall view of forensic clemency we modify the death
sentence and direct the appellant to suffer imprisonment for life.
P.B.R. Appeal allowed in part.
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