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Ravi S/o Ashok Ghumare v. The State of Maharashtra

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 1114Decided 3 Oct 2019
Criminal Appeal Nos. 1488-1489 of 2018
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice Surya Kant · Justice R. Subhash Reddy

Background

The appellant was convicted of kidnapping, raping, and murdering a 2-year-old girl in Jalna, Maharashtra, after being seen drunk and distributing chocolates to children shortly before the child went missing. Police broke into his locked house and found the unconscious, gravely injured child under his bed; she died shortly after. The trial court convicted him based on circumstantial evidence (his presence with the victim behind doors locked from both sides, medical evidence of rape, recovered blood-stained clothing, and his failure to explain the incriminating circumstances) and sentenced him to death, a decision the Bombay High Court confirmed on reference. The appellant appealed to the Supreme Court against both conviction and sentence.

Decision Breakdown

All three judges unanimously upheld the conviction, finding the circumstantial evidence formed a complete and unbroken chain pointing only to the appellant's guilt. However, the bench split on sentencing: Justices Nariman and Surya Kant (forming the majority) held this was a "rarest of the rare" case warranting the death penalty, citing the extreme brutality against a defenceless toddler, the calculated manner in which the appellant locked himself in to avoid detection, and his complete lack of remorse, and therefore dismissed the appeals and affirmed the death sentence. Justice R. Subhash Reddy, in a separate opinion, agreed with the conviction but dissented on sentence, reasoning that the appellant was intoxicated at the time, was only 25 years old, there was no evidence ruling out the possibility of reform, and the conviction rested on circumstantial rather than direct evidence: he would have commuted the sentence to life imprisonment without remission. By majority (2:1), the Supreme Court's operative order confirmed the conviction and affirmed the death sentence.

Lesson Learnt

In death penalty cases, Indian courts apply a structured "rarest of the rare" test weighing aggravating factors (brutality, vulnerability of the victim, lack of remorse, deliberate concealment) against mitigating factors (age, intoxication, possibility of reform, nature of evidence), and even among senior judges of the same court, reasonable and sincere disagreement on where that balance tips can result in split opinions on sentence, with the majority view prevailing as the Court's final order.

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

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