Maharashtra: Bus driver given death for mowing down 9 pleads 'unsound mind'

Press Trust of India

Jun 25, 2014 at 07:41pm IST

Mumbai: Santosh Mane, a former state transport bus driver, who has been awarded death penalty for mowing down nine persons in a fit of reckless driving on Pune roads in January 2012, on Wednesday pleaded before the Bombay High Court that he was of "unsound mind" at the relevant time. Mane's lawyer argued that he did not have the motive to commit such a heinous crime and that at the time of the incident he was of "unsound mind". 

A bench of Justices VM Kanade and PD Kode was hearing an appeal filed by Mane against his conviction by the Pune trial court. To a query by the bench whether the trial court had observed that he was of "unsound mind" at the time of the incident, the lawyer replied in the negative. However, the lawyer said, at the stage of remand, the driver had filed an application in the trial court saying that he was of "unsound mind" and for that he needed treatment. The court had then asked a psychiatrist to give him medical help. The lawyer further informed the bench that the trial court had rejected Mane's plea that he was of "unsound mind". The high court wanted to know whether Mane had challenged that order in a higher court. 

To this, lawyer replied in the negative but said he had a doctor's certificate saying Mane was of "unsound mind". However, the high court said that it was not sufficient to have a letter from the doctor about the accused being of "unsound mind". "You (Mane) cannot take such a plea just because you are being treated for this. The trial court should have given a finding to this effect," the bench said. The court was hearing an appeal filed by Mane against death sentence, along with the appeal on confirmation of death penalty given to Mane. In September, 2013, the high court had set aside the death penalty awarded to Mane, noting that the trial court had not heard him on the point of sentence. The court referred the matter back to the trial court, asking it to hear Mane again. The trial court subsequently once again awarded him death sentence. It reasoned that the crime was of the "rarest of the rare" category as Mane had killed people by running them over with an ST bus, fully conscious of the consequences. 

On January 25, 2012, Mane hijacked a state transport bus from Swargate depot in Pune city and went berserk as he drove it around, mowing down whoever came in his path. By the time police chased him down and stopped him, he had left nine people dead and 37 others injured.

Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/maharashtra-bus-driver-given-death-for-mowing-down-9-pleads-unsound-mind/481829-3-237.html [last accesse 06.02.2015] 

HIV rapist's death sentence commuted

Asseem Shaikh, TNN | Jun 19, 2014, 01.37AM IST PUNE: The Bombay High Court has commuted to life the death sentence awarded to a 29-year-old HIV patient, from Pune. He had raped his seven-year-old niece and then strangled her at Kasegaon village in Sangli in 2011. The bench comprising justices V K Tahilramani and V L Achliya observed, "There can be no doubt that the offence committed by the accused deserves severe condemnation and it is a heinous crime, but on looking at the cumulative facts and on balancing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of the case, we do not think that the case falls in the category of rarest of rare cases. Hence, we are not inclined to confirm the death sentence." On March 26, 2013, the district and sessions court at Islampur had convicted and sentenced him to death for raping and murdering the girl. The victim, a resident of Sangli, was studying in standard two in a local school. The prosecution's case is that on February 26, 2011, the man had taken the girl from school to Kalammawadi, near Kasegaon in Walva tehsil and raped her in a sugarcane field. He then strangled her and fled to Pune. When the girl did not come back from school, her mother told her husband. He inquired with the school teacher who had told him that she had gone with her maternal uncle. After a search, the girl's father registered a criminal case with the Kasegaon police station. The rapist was arrested after investigations revealed his involvement in the crime. The victim's body was recovered from the sugarcane field. The trial court had sentenced him to death under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He was sentenced to life imprisonment for rape under section 376 (2) (f) of the IPC. He was also sentenced to three years' rigorous imprisonment each for kidnapping and destroying evidence under sections 363 and 201 of the IPC. The trial court had sent a reference to the high court for confirming the death sentence. He had also filed a criminal appeal challenging the death sentence in the high court. Additional public prosecutor Mankuwar Deshmukh relied on aggravating circumstances to prove that the accused had brutally raped and murdered a defenceless girl. She pleaded to confirm death sentence as the girl was last seen in the company of the accused. She relied on the DNA report to prove that the blood stains found on the victim's frock matched his blood group. She submitted that the rapist was a habitual offender as he had two cases registered against him with the Chinchwad police station here in 2009 and 2011. The HC later found that he had been acquitted in both the cases. The HC appointed lawyer Abhaykumar Apte to represent the man from its legal aid committee. Apte argued that police had not recorded his statement to show that the dead body was recovered at his instance. He also challenged the identification parade of the accused on the grounds that the witnesses had seen him at the police station. The HC's observations Quoting several Supreme Court judgments, the HC bench said, "The man was suffering from HIV and this was the only mitigating circumstance in his favour for commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment." The HC also sought his doctor's advice on whether his life span will be that of an ordinary man if he continued with the medicines. While partly allowing his appeal, the HC on examining the evidence maintained his conviction under sections of the IPC, but commuted the death sentence given for murder to life imprisonment. The HC also commuted the life imprisonment awarded for rape to 10 years RI. However, both the sentences will run consecutively. The sentences of three years RI each awarded for kidnapping and destruction of evidence will run concurrently. The judgment was delivered on May 8 and posted on the HC website on June 18. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/HIV-rapists-death-sentence-commuted/articleshow/36781424.cms [last accessed 06.02.2015]

Public Consultation Paper On The Death Penalty

Dear Friends, For those who oppose capital punishment in India, this is the time to make your views and voices count. The Law Commission has issued a public consultation paper on the death penalty. The consultation note and questionnaire are attached separately to this email. (See also link below). I cannot emphasise strongly enough the need for citizens to write in with their views on this very important subject. Convicts are executed in our names, and if we don't want this to happen, we should speak out. There will be few more opportune moments to do so. The Law Commission's views command a great deal of respect in court and in Parliament. Each constitutional challenge to the death penalty in the Supreme Court has failed thus far, and each time the Supreme Court quoted the Law Commission's views articulated in its 35th Report. The Law Commission's only report (35th Report) on the death penalty (see link below) was begun more than 50 years ago in 1962 and was completed shortly after the Indo-China war. It concluded thus: “Having regard, however, to the conditions in India, to the variety of social upbringing of its inhabitants, to the disparity in the level of morality and education in the country, to the vastness of its area, to the diversity of its population and to the paramount need for maintaining law and order in the country at the present juncture, India cannot risk the experiment of abolition of capital punishment.” (emphasis added) A lot has changed since this report was published. For example: 1. The murder rate has declined continuously for the last 22 years. 2. The Supreme Court has repeatedly admitted that the death penalty has been inflicted arbitrarily, unfairly, subjectively and inconsistently. The Court has said that death sentencing depends more on the personal predilections of the sentencing judge than on the facts of the case. 3. The Supreme Court has also admitted that a large number of people have been wrongly sentenced to death and executed. 4. In 1967, just a handful of countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practise. Today, more than two-thirds of the world's countries eschew capital punishment. 5. In 1967, the normal punishment for murder was the death sentence. Today, it is only in the rarest of rare cases that the death sentence is handed out. It is actually executed in even fewer cases. This drastic decline in the use of capital punishment has not increased crime; in fact it is has coincided with the decline in the murder rate. In India, we use capital punishment so infrequently (8 executions for every lakh murders), we may as well not have it all. Moreover, there is no rational basis for selecting these 8 as being especially deserving of capital punishment. 6. In India, we did not have any executions between 2004 - 2012, and there was no corresponding impact on the murder rate. If anything at all, the murder rate kept decreasing. This shows that we can easily do without capital punishment and it does not serve any utilitarian purpose. 6. Countries with a lower Human Development Index (HDI) than India's have abolished capital punishment with no tangible negative consequences. If Haiti, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Paraguay, South Africa, Senegal, Philippines, Rwanda, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Bolivia -- with lower HDI and higher murder rates -- can do away with capital punishment, surely we can too. 7. Studies around the world have shown that the death penalty has no greater deterrent value than life imprisonment. Please circulate news of this consultation widely in email groups, social media etc so that as many people as possible write in with their views and comments. Please take the trouble to fill in the questionnaire and return it to the Law Commission at the following address: Member-Secretary Law Commission of India, 14th Floor, Hindustan Times House Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi – 110 001 Tel.:+91 – 011- 23355738, 23355742; Fax: (0091)/011 - 23736744 E-mail: lci-dla@nic.in Website: http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/

India Red Fort: Court stays attacker's death penalty

28 April 2014 Last updated at 08:13 GMT

India's Supreme Court has put on hold the death sentence of Mohammad Arif, a Pakistani man convicted of attacking Delhi's Red Fort in December 2000.

The judges accepted his lawyer's argument that there had been a long delay in deciding his case.

Arif, also known as Ashfaq Arif, was a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant who was convicted in 2005. The Supreme Court confirmed his sentence in 2011. Three people died in the attack on the 17th Century fort, an Indian landmark. Arif's is the latest in a series of high-profile cases in which the Supreme Court has commuted death sentences because those facing execution have spent so long on death row.

In February, the court commuted the death sentences of three men convicted of plotting the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. And in January, the court had commuted the sentences of 15 death row prisoners to life in jail on the grounds of delay. On Monday, the Supreme Court ordered that a larger "constitution" bench be set up to decide Arif's case.

His lawyer had argued in the court that hanging Arif would be a violation of the constitution since he had already spent more than 13 years in jail. Arif was arrested along with his wife, Rehmana Yousuf Farooqui, four days after the Red Fort attack and found guilty of murder, criminal conspiracy and waging war against India. The trial court convicted him and six others in October 2005. He was sentenced to death, while the others received jail terms of varying lengths.

In September 2007, the high court upheld his conviction, but ordered the release of the others for lack of evidence. The Supreme Court confirmed his death penalty in 2011.

India rarely carries out executions, which are often delayed indefinitely or commuted by the president.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27184340 [accessed on 2nd May 2014]

HC commutes death penalty of 3

Abhinav Garg,TNN | May 2, 2014, 03.32 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Despite the brutality of the crime committed by them, Delhi high court has commuted the death sentence of three people accused of murder based on their conduct in jail and the possibility of reform. 

A division bench of justices S Muralidhar and Mukta Gupta commuted the death penalty awarded to a man and his relatives for killing the man's wife saying the case did not fall in the "rarest of the rare category" warranting capital punishment. 

"The nominal roll of the three accused shows that their conduct in jail is satisfactory thus far. None of them were previous offenders. More importantly there was no material whatsoever placed by the state before the trial court or this court which would help conclude that the three accused are likely to commit a crime in the future or are incapable of being reformed," the bench noted while reducing the punishment. 

The high court also faulted the trial court for ignoring mitigating circumstances and said the court appears to have taken note essentially of the fact that an innocent, helpless woman has been murdered in a very brutal manner. "The trial court has not analyzed the role of each of the accused and the mitigating factors vis-a-vis each of them," it added saying it is "not persuaded to hold that the crime can be characterized as a 'rarest of rare' case". 

The bench commuted the death sentence of Surender Singh, his brother Narender Singh and their mother Lakhpati Devi. They have been accused of killing Urmila, Surender's wife. Appearing for the prosecution, additional public prosecutor Varun Goswamy had submitted that the murder fell in the category of "rarest of rare" case as a helpless woman was murdered by the three accused in the "most brutal and dastardly manner". 

However, the bench said, "Unless the court is satisfied that there are absolutely no mitigating circumstances and that the case falls under the category of 'rarest of rare', it should not award the death sentence." 

Urmila was murdered by her husband and two relatives on the intervening night of October 15/16, 2007 in front of her three children after she demanded that a piece of land be transferred in her childrens' name.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Delhi/HC-commutes-death-penalty-of-3/articleshow/34504084.cms [accessed 2nd May 2014]

Man gets death sentence in rape and murder case

Press Trust of India  |  Krishnagar (WB)  

April 29, 2014 Last Updated at 19:40 IST

A man was sentenced to death by a Nadia district court for raping and killing a minor girl. 

Additional District Session Judge Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay yesterday awarded capital punishment to Bimal Sardar (24) and imposed a fine of Rs 2.20 lakh. According to prosecution, the victim girl, a student of class VII, did not return home after completion of her examination on June 10 last year. 

Locals then beat him up and handed him over to the police.

Her almost naked body, with the throat slit, was found in a field the next day by Sardar who informed local people about it. 

The locals, however, got suspicious of Sardar's behaviour and started grilling him. At one point of time, he broke down and confessed that he had raped and killed her. 

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/man-gets-death-sentence-in-rape-and-murder-case-114042901266_1.html [accessed on 2nd May 2014]

Indian Supreme Court refuses to release 7 assassins of former PM Rajiv Gandhi

Source:Xinhua Published: 2014-4-25 16:16:12

India's Supreme Court Friday refused to release seven assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi from prison, and referred the case to a five-judge Constitution Bench.

A bench, headed by Chief Justice P. Sathasivam, also framed seven questions to be addressed by the Constitution Bench, including whether after commutation of the death sentence into life in jail, they can be released, and whether the central government or the Tamil Nadu government can do so.

The seven assassins are currently lodged in a jail in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and each has spent more than 20 years in prison.

In February, the Supreme Court had commuted the death sentences of three of the convicts -- Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan -- who were on death row, citing an inordinate delay in disposing of their mercy petitions by the Indian president.

The other four assassins in the case have been serving life imprisonment.

After the apex court ruling, Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa had said all the seven would be released, compelling the central government to challenge the order.

"The release of the killers of a former prime minister of India and our great leader, as well as several other innocent Indians, would be contrary to all principles of justice," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said in response to Jayalalithaa's announcement.

Rajiv Gandhi, who was India's prime minister from 1984 to 1989, was killed by Dhanu, a Sri Lankan suicide bomber from the now- defunct Tamil Tigers, during an election rally at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991.

Some 26 people were convicted in the case in 1998 by a special court which sentenced all of them to death. But, in 1999, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences of four -- Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan and Nalini.

However, Nalini's death sentence was commuted to life in jail, following the intervention of Rajiv Gandhi's widow and ruling Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, as she gave birth to a girl in jail.

Source: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/856820.shtml#.U2PuGfmSwrU [accessed on 2nd May 2014]]