Preeti Rathi Acid Attack: Why Bombay HC commuted Ankur Panwar’s Death Penalty [Read Judgment]

Omkar Gokhale.The Bombay High Court on Wednesday commuted the death penalty awarded to Ankur Panwar, the 26-year old convicted for the acid attack and murder of Preeti Rathi in 2013..The case was the first instance of a death penalty being given in an acid attack case by a trial court. While the Bombay High Court upheld Panwar’s conviction in the case, it commuted the death penalty awarded by the trial court to a sentence of life imprisonment..A Division Bench of Justices BP Dharmadhikari and PD Naik partly allowed the appeal filed by Panwar, challenging the death penalty awarded to him by a special court in 2016..On May 2, 2013, 23-year-old Preeti Rathi, who had come to Mumbai from Delhi to take up a job as a nurse at INS Mumbai in Colaba, alighted at Bandra Terminus from Garib Rath express along with her father, uncle and aunt. As she was alighting, an unidentified youth flung sulphuric acid at her. Police later identified Panwar as an accused. Preeti Rathi succumbed to her injuries within a month on June 1 at a Bombay Hospital. .In September 8, 2016, a Special Women’s Court judge, AS Shende had found Ankur Panwar guilty of offences under Section 302 (murder), 326-A and 326-B (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt by use of acid, etc.) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In a first, the Court also handed down a death sentence in an acid attack case..The Bombay High Court, in its 69-page judgement, confirmed Panwar’s conviction for the crime. However, the trial court order was modified by setting aside the sentence of death penalty awarded for Panwar’s conviction under section 302 of IPC..The Bombay High Court commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment on finding that the case at hand could not be termed as rarest of the rare. The Court stated that the trial court did not apply its mind to the factors enumerated in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab and other relevant cases. These cases lay down that the death penalty should be served only in the rarest of rare cases..The factors enunciated in Bachan Singh case for awarding death penalty include, whether the offence was committed under influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance, the age of accused, the probability that the accused would not commit criminal acts of violence as would constitute a continuing threat to society and probability that the accused can be reformed or rehabilitated..The High Court found that the trial court, in this case, had relied on collective conscience and crime test to hold that the case falls under the rarest of rare criterion. In doing so, the Bench observed that the trial court had ignored the criminal test as laid down in several decisions..Further, the Court also found that the mitigating factors laid down in Bachan Singh would apply in this case. Therefore, it was not an appropriate case to give death penalty, the Court ruled. As stated in its order,.“The accused was young boy aged about 23 years at the time of commission of offence. There is no past criminal record. There was nothing to indicate that the accused was beyond reformation and rehabilitation, as mandated in the case of Bachan Singh and other cases.“.In view of the same, the Court set aside the death sentence and commuted the same to life imprisonment..[Read Judgment].Bar & Bench is available on WhatsApp. For real-time updates on stories, Click here to subscribe to our WhatsApp.