Supreme Court acquits three Death Penalty Convicts, commutes sentence of one

The Supreme Court yesterday acquitted three persons who had been awarded death penalty in a murder case. The death sentence awarded to a fourth accused was commuted to life imprisonment..The judgment was rendered by a Bench of Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi and Justices L Nageswara Rao and Sanjiv Khanna in an appeal against a judgment of Karnataka High Court..The four appellants were sentenced to death by trial court for a murder which happened in 2009. The High Court had upheld the same leading to the appeal in Supreme Court..The Supreme Court considered the material on record and the submissions of the parties. It noted that the conviction of the appellants was based heavily on the eye witness accounts of two persons – Srinivas @ Seenu (PW 6) and Suryakanthamma (PW 7)..The court noted that they had given a vivid description of the manner in which the offence was committed by the accused persons. However, the Court said that even if it accepted the said part of the evidence given by the two prosecution witnesses, further proof of identification of the accused persons would be required to sustain the case of the prosecution..It, therefore, proceeded to examine the material relating to the identification of the four accused persons in detail. Based on the material available, the Court came to the conclusion that the identification of three of the accused by the two witnesses was not sufficient to convict them..“In the absence of adequate evidence on the part of the prosecution with regard to identification of the accused persons and recovery of articles/items we are of the view that the conviction of Basavaraj @ Basya (Accused No.1), Yankappa @ Yankya (Accused No.3) and Ramesh @ Ramya (Accused No.4) as recorded/made by the learned trial Court and affirmed by the High Court and the sentence of death imposed would require to be interfered with.”.Accordingly, it set aside the conviction of three of the appellants..As regards the fourth appellant, the Court held that his involvement in the crime stood proved from the evidence on record. However, considering the circumstances in which the crime was committed and the fact that charges against three of the co-accused have failed, the Court proceeded to commute his death penalty to imprisonment for life..Read the judgment below.