Patna High Court: A Division Bench of Arvind Srivastava and Rakesh Kumar, JJ., upheld the judgment of the trial court and dismissed the appeal, but modified the death sentence of the appellant to a sentence of life imprisonment.
In the present case, the accused-appellant was charged with committing offences under Section 302 and Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, and was also charged under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, for raping and murdering a six-year-old girl. The prosecution had provided a number of witnesses, including testimonial evidence from the informant, his wife, the investigating officer of the case, the medical officer etc., to substantiate the charges. The prosecution had also presented evidence which consisted of the blood-stained clothes of the appellant as well as the victim, the medical report containing the details of the injuries on the body and the possible cause of death.
Even though the appellant had denied all charges under which he was being tried, the defence did not present any evidence or bring any witnesses to repudiate the said charges. The claim by the defence that reliable witnesses had not been relied upon, the evidence presented had been compromised and that the presented witnesses were interested witnesses was rejected by the Court.
The Court decreed that in cases pertaining to rape and sexual assault, it was extremely unlikely that there would be any eye-witnesses. In light of the same, the Court held that the prosecution had conclusively proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the appellant had committed the offence of rape and then murdered the victim.
The High Court then reviewed the death sentence which was given by the trial court. The Court held that death sentence should be reserved for the rarest of rare cases, and since the appellant was a young man who had not committed any offence prior to the present case, the Court reduced the sentence of the appellant to that of life imprisonment, stating that it would serve the purpose which the offence committed by the appellant merited. [State of Bihar v. Hari Kishun Sada,2018 SCC OnLine Pat 1988, Order dated 02-11-2018].
