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Amar Singh Yadav v. State of U.P.

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal Nos. 967-968 of 2010)Decided 1 Jul 2014
Criminal Appeal Nos. 967-968 of 2010
Justice Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya · Justice Dipak Misra

Background

A police constable set fire to a van containing his wife and four children; his wife and two daughters died while two children survived. The trial court convicted him of murder, attempted murder and burning property, and imposed the death sentence, which the High Court confirmed. He challenged both the evidence and capital punishment.

Decision Breakdown

The Court upheld the convictions, finding the surviving children's evidence corroborated by credible dying declarations and the rescuing officer's account. It nevertheless commuted death to life imprisonment because the case did not satisfy the exceptional threshold for capital punishment and reform could not be ruled out. To reflect the extreme cruelty of the offences, it required at least thirty years in prison without remission before consideration for premature release. The other sentences remained, running concurrently. The change in punishment did not reduce or erase the findings of guilt.

Lesson Learnt

Even an exceptionally cruel murder requires an individual assessment before imposing the death penalty. Commutation may still leave a long minimum prison period and does not guarantee release when that period ends.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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