Not shown that convict was beyond reformation, rehabilitation: Calcutta High Court commutes death penalty for double murder

The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday commuted the death penalty of a man convicted for the murder of a one-and-a-half-year-old child and the child's mother [State v Nandita Saha].

The judgment passed by a Bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi said that the trial judge failed to embark on an exercise to find out whether the convict was beyond reformation or not.

"In the facts of the present case, the state has neither at the stage of the trial nor before us in appeal provided any materials to show that the convict was beyond reformation and rehabilitation," the court recorded.

Reliance was also placed on a decision of the High Court in the case of State of West Bengal v. Nemai Sasmal wherein a death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment in the case of a 14-year-old girl's murder.

The Court in that case had observed that the extreme penalty of death ought not to be awarded unless the alternate option of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed.

In the appeal at hand, the two convicts were found guilty of the double-murder, with one of them being sentenced to life imprisonment and the other being awarded the death penalty.

They had preferred appeals, arguing that the prosecution failed to establish the chain of circumstances and relied on circumstantial evidence.

The Court took into account the State's failure to provide material that the convict is beyond rehabilitation and reformation, noting that this was a mitigating circumstance in favour of the convict.

"Consequently, in our view, award of life imprisonment as a sentence for the crime committed by convict No. 2 was not foreclosed."

It thus found that the interest of justice would be served by commuting the death penalty of the convict to a life sentence without remission for a period of 40 years from the date of commission of the offence.

All other aspects of the trial court's judgment were upheld.

Advocates Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee, Nandini Chatterjee, Supreme Naskar and Jayashree Patra represented appellants.

Advocates Madhusudan Sur and Dipankar Pramanick represented State.

[Read Order]