Supreme Court dismisses review petition against "every sinner has a future" verdict; upholds commutation of death penalty

The Supreme Court has dismissed the review petition filed against an April 19, 2021 judgment of the top court by which it had commuted the death sentence of a man convicted for killing a 4-year-old girl after raping her [Mohd. Firoz v. State of Madhya Pradesh]..The bench of Justices UU Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi held that the decision to commute death penalty of the convict to life imprisonment, was taken after considering all relevant factors."Thus, the commutation of sentence of death to that of life imprisonment was done by the Court after bestowing attention to the relevant factors. In the circumstances, no case is made out to take a different view in the matter and this Review Petition is dismissed," the Court said.The review petition was filed by the mother of the deceased girl challenging the commutation of death sentence of convict Mohd. Firoz to life imprisonment.The Supreme Court in its April 19 judgment had held that it was not a 'rarest of rare' case warranting death penalty.However, certain observations in the judgment had invited criticism..The Bench in that judgment had invoked Oscar Wilde and had observed that the only difference between a saint and a sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. One of the basic principles of restorative justice as developed by this Court over the years, also is to give an opportunity to the offender to repair the damage caused, and to become a socially useful individual, when he is released from the jail," the judgment under review had said..According to the prosecution case, the accused, a labourer at Jhabua Power Plant, had gone to the victim's house seeking temporary accommodation.However, the victim's mother refused to accommodate him and asked him to leave. He, however, sat in their courtyard for some time and took the victim and her elder brother outside the house, purchased some bananas and gave it to the victim's brother.He then took the victim to a secluded place, committed rape and subsequently killed her.The accused was handed death sentence by a sessions court in Seoni and a co-accused was sentenced to a jail term for kidnapping the victim.The death sentence was confirmed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur by an order passed on July 15, 2014. The same was challenged by the convict before the top court which upheld the conviction but commuted the death sentence. The mother of the accused has stated in her review petition that her daughter "was, at the tender age of 3 years and 8 months, deceitfully kidnapped, brutally raped and viciously murdered by the accused in the most brutal, diabolical and revolting manner".The plea said that while commuting the death sentence, the top court had only considered the rights of the accused, and completely ignored the rights of the victim, which is impermissible in the eyes of law.The plea filed through advocate Alakh Alok Shrivastava further contended that the extreme depravity and barbaric manner in which the crime was committed, and the fact that the petitioner’s daughter was a helpless child of about 4 years categorically brought it within the category of 'rarest of the rare' case..The top court, however, did not find merit in the review petition."After considering the landmark decisions of this Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980 (2) SCC 684) and Machi Singh and Others v. State of Punjab (1983 (3) SCC 470), this Court did not deem it appropriate to sustain the sentence of death awarded under Section 302 of the IPC. As the discussion in Paragraph 40 and 41 indicates, the legislative policy under Sections 354 (3) and 235 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 was noted and the commutation as aforesaid was directed," the Court said dismissing the plea..[Read Judgment]