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Babasaheb Maruti Kamble v. The State of Maharashtra

Review Petition (Criminal) · 2018 INSC 1031Decided 1 Nov 2018
Review Petition (Criminal) No. 388 of 2015
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan · Justice Indira Banerjee

Background

The petitioner was convicted of murder, rape (Section 376(2)(f)), and wrongful confinement (Section 342) of a young girl, and the trial court sentenced him to death for the murder, with the High Court confirming both the conviction and the death sentence. His first Special Leave Petition against that High Court judgment was dismissed by the Supreme Court in a single word ("Dismissed") without any reasons, prompting him to file this review petition arguing that death-sentence cases should never be dismissed without recorded reasons.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed that special leave petitions in death sentence cases should not be dismissed in limine without reasons, given the gravity and irreversibility of capital punishment, and it allowed the review petition, recalling its earlier one-word dismissal and restoring the original Special Leave Petition for a full hearing. Having restored and then fully heard the matter (now numbered as Criminal Appeal No. 1440 of 2018), the Court examined the circumstantial evidence, including last-seen testimony, recovery of the victim's body and belongings from the appellant's house, and DNA/post-mortem evidence, and upheld the conviction as proven beyond reasonable doubt. On sentence, however, it held the case did not meet the "rarest of rare" threshold required for the death penalty, given the appellant's age (over 60) and clean prior record, and commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment with a 20-year minimum before he could seek remission.

Lesson Learnt

Dismissing a death-penalty case without giving any reasons is itself a legal error that can be corrected on review, and even after a conviction for a serious crime is upheld, the "rarest of rare" standard for imposing death as punishment is applied strictly, with factors like the convict's age and clean record weighed before confirming a death sentence.

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

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