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Waris v. The State of Madhya Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1050Decided 24 Sept 2026
Criminal Appeal Nos. 429-430 of 2020
Justice Vikram Nath · Justice Sandeep Mehta · Justice Vijay Bishnoi

Background

The appellant was convicted of sexually assaulting and then killing his six-year-old step-daughter at their home in Madhya Pradesh in April 2018, with the child's mother (who was confined in another room during the assault) as the sole eyewitness. The Trial Court and the Madhya Pradesh High Court both convicted him and confirmed a death sentence. During the Supreme Court appeal, it emerged that the mother's original cross-examination at trial had been conducted by a legal-aid lawyer appointed on the very day her testimony was recorded, raising fair-trial concerns, so the Supreme Court itself directed and obtained a further, proper cross-examination of the mother in 2025 before deciding the appeal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the fresh cross-examination cured the earlier fair-trial infirmity, and, after minutely re-examining the mother's testimony against medical evidence, the child's own disclosures, phone records, the appellant's conduct and an extra-judicial confession, found her account reliable and upheld the conviction under Sections 302, 376(2)(f), 376(2)(n), 376AB and 201 IPC and Sections 5-6 of the POCSO Act. On sentence, however, the Court found that the Trial Court had violated Section 235(2) CrPC by pronouncing conviction and the death sentence on the same day, denying a genuine hearing on sentence, and that no mitigating material (the appellant's background, custody conduct, reform prospects) had ever been placed on record, a defect the Supreme Court cured by itself commissioning a psychological/mitigation investigation report. Weighing this fresh material, the Court found the appellant had no criminal antecedents, unblemished jail conduct, and unexcluded potential for reform, and, following its own jurisprudence (Manoj v. State of MP, Vasanta Sampat Dupare) and the "middle path" intermediate sentencing option recognised in Union of India v. V. Sriharan, commuted the death sentence to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life without any possibility of remission, while affirming the other sentences to run concurrently.

Lesson Learnt

Even in the gravest crimes, a death sentence cannot be sustained unless the prosecution affirmatively rules out the possibility of the offender's reform and shows that no lesser punishment (including life imprisonment without remission) would meet the ends of justice, and courts must give the accused a genuine, separate hearing on sentence with full background material, not decide punishment on the same day as conviction.

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

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