Allahabad High Court upholds death sentence of man who killed wife, 3 sons, 2 neighbours

The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence of a 52--year-old man, who killed his wife, three sons, a woman in the neighbourhood and her son [State of Uttar Pradesh vs Sarvan].A Division bench of Justices Ramesh Sinha and Saroj Yadav said that the the appellant was a menace to the society since he killed six innocent persons only because his wife opposed his illicit relationship with his sister-in-law."The postmortem reports disclose brutal, grotesque, diabolical murder, which clearly reflects the mindset of the appellant Sarvan. The manner in which offence was committed and also the magnitude of crime, in our view, places the present matter in the category of anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of crime. We concur with the finding of Trial Court that six persons were murdered by Sarvan in most brutal, grotesque, diabolical and dastardly manner arousing indignation and abhorrence of society which calls for an exemplary punishment," the Court said in its 96-page judgement..The bench noted that on April 25, 2009, when the appellant's now deceased wife objected to his illicit relationship, he came out of the house, got an axe and went back inside, shouting that he would finish off his wife and sons. After some time, when the neighbouring woman heard screams of the wife and tried to intervene, the appellant attacked her too mounting multiple blows. When the neighbouring women's son and daughter tried to save their mother, he did not spare them too..The appellant's wife was 35 years at the time of incident, while her three sons were aged 6, a and 1.5 years. The neighbouring woman was 50 years old and her son was 10 years old, the bench noted."Three minor children including their mother and two of his neighbours have been murdered by Sarvan when they were helpless and nothing is on record to show that they aggravated the situation so as to arise sudden and grave passion on his part to commit such dastardly crime. He has also not shown any remorse or repentance at any point of time, inasmuch as, he attempted to hide the weapon in the house of his bhabhi (co-accused)," the bench observed..The bench further noted that in his statements recorded by the trial court under section 313 of the CrPC, the appellant didn't express any remorse but confessed to his illicit relationship and that he was unhappy with his wife for objecting to it."The conduct, attitude and manner in which murder of four persons of his family and two persons of his neighbours was committed by Sarvan shows that he is a menace to the society and if he is not awarded death penalty, others members of the Society may not be safe. He slayed six lives to quench his thirst. The entire incident is extremely revolting and shocks the collective conscience of the community. Murders were committed in gruesome, merciless and brutal manner," the bench opined while categorising this case as a rarest of rare one..Further the judges said that the aggravating circumstances in this case were on a higher pedestal in comparison to the mitigating circumstances. It noted that there wasn't any report regarding any chance of his rehabilitation and reformation."In our view, the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances by all canons of logic and punishment of life imprisonment would neither serve the ends of justice nor will be an appropriate punishment. We are also clearly of the view that he is a menace to the society and there is no chance of his rehabilitation or reformation and no leniency in imposing punishment is called for," the Court concluded.Therefore, it upheld his conviction for murder and attempt to destroy evidence and also upheld the death sentence. It also upheld the conviction of his sister-in-law, who helped him to destroy evidence..Advocates Manjusha Kapil and Kamlesh Singh represented Sarvan and Suman respectively. .[Read Judgment]