Supreme Court: In the case where death penalty was sought for a man who allegedly set his 7-month pregnant wife on fire by pouring kerosene oil and also threw their 3-year-old son on the burning body of the deceased, the bench of P.C. Ghose and R.F. Nariman, JJ refused to award death penalty and held that confinement till natural life of the accused shall fulfill the requisite criteria of punishment in peculiar facts and circumstances of the case.
In the present case, the medical evidence had proved that the deceased met an unnatural death. Considering the fact that there is no other eye-witness to the incident as the accused and the deceased were alone at the house at the time of commission of offence, the Court noticed that the failure on the part of the accused to explain how his pregnant wife and their minor child met with unnatural death due to burn injuries sustained at their house leads to an inference which goes against the accused. The Court also took note of the the dying declarations of the deceased with consistent allegations about demand of dowry and modus operandi of the offence which resulted into the death of the declarant and her minor child and held that it is evident that each of the circumstances had been established, the cumulative effect whereof would show that all the links in the chain are complete and the conclusion of the guilt is fully established.
However, based on the recommendation of the Law Commission of India in the Report Number 262 where the abolition of death penalty for all the crimes other than terrorism related offences and waging war (offences affecting National Security) was recommended, the Court said that capital punishment has become a distinctive feature of death penalty apparatus in India which somehow breaches the reformative theory of punishment under criminal law and hence, refused to award the same in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case. [State of Maharashtra v. Nisar Ramzan Sayyed, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 356, decided on 07.04.2017]