By Abraham Thomas, New Delhi
Published on: Jul 17, 2025 07:42 am IST
The Supreme Court sentenced two death row convicts to life imprisonment, emphasizing the need to consider psychological and social factors in capital cases.
The Supreme Court in separate cases decided on Wednesday ordered two death row convicts to remain in jail for the rest of their lives without remission considering elaborate reports of their social background study, psychological analysis and the mitigating factors to save them from the gallows. The bench headed by justice Vikram Nath, which decided both cases, underlined that in death penalty cases, the high courts should take into consideration the psychological analysis and the social setting of the convict and not rely solely on the brutality of the crime while affirming punishment.
Both cases that came before the court were gruesome and diabolical. The first instance was from Karnataka where a man mercilessly hacked to death his wife, sister-in-law and three children on a belief that his wife had an immoral character and the three children were born as a result of such immoral activities. The incident was of 2017 and both the trial court and Karnataka high court sentenced him to death. The convict in the second case from Uttarakhand, also suffered consecutive death penalty orders from the trial court and high court, in a case where he raped and murdered a minor girl in Dehradun in 2018. The bench, also comprising justices Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta relied on a 2023 ruling by the Supreme Court in Manoj vs State of MP that set a precondition for courts to send a person to the gallows only after due consideration of the entire background of facts and circumstances that have landed the accused person at the “precipice of death”. The court noted that in the two cases under consideration, this rule was somewhat given a miss as the high court failed to examine the social and psychological backdrop of the convicts.
While affirming the conviction in both cases, the bench directed both the convicts to remain forever in jail. In the first instance, the court held, “While we affirm the findings of the courts below regarding the appellant-convict’s conviction for the barbaric and ruthless murders of his family members, on the aspect of sentencing, we hold that despite having considerable information before it, the high court did not consider it appropriately and sufficiently, in view of the findings recorded in the said reports.” The court examined the probation report which revealed the convict Byluru Thippaiah had no criminal antecedents and his “Conduct and Behavioural Report” submitted by the prison authorities showed him to possess “good moral character” and “good conduct” with co-prisoners and prison officials. He became literate by participating in the Basic Literacy Program organized by the Zilla Lok Shiksha Samiti and obtained a good rank. Justice Karol, writing the two judgments, in the present case said, “Once incarcerated, it appears that mental health struggles have been a constant and unwelcome companion…Considering the sum-total of circumstances that drove the appellant-convict to this point of committing this crime of a most reprehensible nature, the death penalty may not be appropriate.”
On two occasions, the convict attempted suicide inside jail - once on coming to know about the death of his entire family and again, when he was sentenced to death for the crime. Even the mitigation report revealed his troubled past. He did not receive love from his parents and felt extremely insecure after his brother’s death. He dropped out from school and his breakdown of marriage with his first wife contributed to depression. Commuting his sentence to life term, the court held, “We are of the view that he should spend his days in jail attempting to repent for the crimes committed by him. As such, these appeals are partly allowed to the extent that he is released from death row. Instead, he shall await his last breath in prison, without remission.” Even in the other case, the court noted the brutality of the crime, but did not miss out on the error into which the high court fell by failing to consider the mitigating factors before upholding capital punishment.
The convict Jai Prakash had lured a girl in his neighbourhood to his hut where she was raped and later throttled to death in an incident reported in July 2018. The trial court in 2019 and the Uttarakhand HC in January 2020 passed concurrent findings of conviction and sentenced him to be hanged till death as the victim was a minor. Justice Karol, here too, observed, “The courts below have only commented on the brutality of the crime in question, to hand down the death penalty to the appellant. No other circumstance came to be discussed by the courts in reaching the conclusion that the case forms part of the ‘rarest of the rare’ category. Such an approach in our view cannot be sustained.” At the same time, the court did not belittle the gravity of the crime. It said, “A helpless child was at first, mercilessly raped after being lured into the appellant’s hut on the pretext of buying sweets with the offered money. Thereafter, to hide the evidence of his crime, the child was strangulated by hand, in a defenseless condition.” For this, he was sentenced for offences of murder, rape and destruction of evidence under Sections 302, 201, 376 and 377 of the Indian Penal Code, as also Section 6 of the POCSO Act for aggravated sexual assault on a minor.
While examining the mitigating factors, the court noted the District Probation Officer, Ayodhya’s report revealing the condition of his family to be “very pathetic” as they earned a livelihood by doing labor work. The psychological report showed that he did not attend school due to the socio-economic condition at home and did menial jobs to earn money for the family at the tender age of 12. HIs conduct in jail was satisfactory as he maintained good relations with fellow inmates and did not suffer from any psychiatric disturbance. Considering all these aspects, the court held, “Taking into account the above mitigating circumstances and the threshold of ‘rarest of rare’ category, we deem it appropriate to award life imprisonment without remission extending to the natural life of the appellant instead of the punishment of the death penalty.”
Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/sc-commutes-death-sentences-of-2-to-life-term-without-remission-101752691798386.html#google_vignette
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