The Madras High Court on Tuesday modified from death to life the sentence imposed on a convict for having sexually abused his minor daughter from the age of seven to 12 years when she attained puberty and thereafter subjecting her to penetrative sexual assault leading to pregnancy and forced miscarriage.
A Division Bench of Justices S.S. Sundar and Sunder Mohan held that the crime, though gruesome, would not fall under the category of ‘rarest of rare case’ or within any of the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court, in the famous Bachan Singh and Machchi Singh cases, to award capital punishment.
“The trial court was carried away by the act of the father who had committed grave sexual offences against his daughter... However, it is settled law that merely because a crime is heinous per se may not be a sufficient reason for imposition of death penalty without considering mitigating factors and other circumstances,” the Bench wrote.
Authoring the verdict, Justice Mohan also said: “ The sentence of death can be imposed only in exceptional cases. Therefore, the imposition of the sentence of life imprisonment is the rule... There is nothing on record to show that A1 (convict) is a menace to society and there is no possibility of reformation at all.”
The judges also acquitted the victim’s mother from the charge of having abetted the crime and set aside the life sentence imposed on her since there was nothing on record to prove that she had willingly allowed her husband to commit the atrocities against their daughter.
Pointing out that the woman had actually questioned her husband for the atrocities committed by him against their daughter but remained silent after being assaulted and threatened of dire consequences. Therefore, the Bench convicted her only for the offence of not reporting the crime to the police.
The judges imposed a sentence of six months for the offence and ordered her release from the prison forthwith since she had undergone the period of sentence ever since the trial court delivered its verdict in the case on April 29, 2022.
The Division Bench also recorded its deep appreciation for State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohamed Jinnah as well as senior counsel R. Rajarathinam and Abudukumar Rajarathinam, who argued the case on behalf of the two convicts pro bono, at the request of the court, since the convicts expressed their inability to engage advocates.
