SC commutes death sentence to allow rape convict’s reformation

NEW DELHI: Stating that one of the tenets of “restorative justice” was to provide opportunities to an offender to become a “socially useful individual”, the Supreme Court has commuted the death sentence of a rape-murder convict to a 20-year jail term.

Hearing the appeal of a man convicted of raping and murdering a four-year-old in 2013 in Madhya Pradesh, a three-judge bench headed by Justice Uday Umesh Lalit said on Tuesday: “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.”

Taking into consideration the brutal nature of the crime, the bench was open to the convict’s death sentence being commuted to a life sentence. “The maximum punishment prescribed may not always be the determinative factor for repairing the crippled psyche of the offender,” the bench, also comprising justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi, said. The convict was sentenced to death by a trial court in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, for causing murder (Section 302) although he was charged and convicted under various provisions of rape (Section 376) of the Indian Penal Code as well as relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO). The Madhya Pradesh high court had upheld the death penalty by its order of July 15, 2014, while it acquitted another person tried with him for the same offences.

Though the SC found the appellant convict guilty of all charges, on the question of sentencing, the bench was guided by the words of famous Irish poet and author Oscar Wilde, who in one of his books, had said, “The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” Justice Trivedi, writing the judgment, said, “Hence, while balancing the scales of retributive justice and restorative justice, we deem it appropriate to impose upon the appellant-accused, the sentence of imprisonment for a period of 20 years, instead of imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life for the offence under section 376A IPC.”

One of the basic principles of restorative justice... is to give an opportunity to the offender to repair the damage caused SC BENCH