Yogendra @ Jogendra Singh vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh

2. These appeals are filed against the Judgment of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Gwalior Bench, dated 12.12.2014 confirming the death sentence awarded to the appellant by the Sessions Court, Ambah, District Morena (M.P.) vide its judgment in Sessions Trial No.388/2013 dated 24.07.2014. The Appellant has been convicted under sections 302, 326(A) and 460 of IPC and awarded capital punishment of death sentence, life sentence on three counts and fine of Rs.25,000/-each, and ten years’ R.I. and fine of Rs.5000/- with default stipulations, respectively. This death sentence has been confirmed by the High Court on a reference under Section 366 of Cr.P.C.

Page 1 of 9 The brief facts of the case are as follows: the Appellant has been convicted for the murder of one Smt. Ruby by pouring acid on her. The Sessions Court awarded a death sentence under Section 302 of the IPC. In the incident the grandmother of the deceased Smt. Chandrakala (PW 3) and one Raju - nephew (PW 7) of the deceased and Janu (PW 4) brother of the deceased were also injured. The Appellant has been convicted for disfiguring and injuring these people by throwing acid under Section 326(A) of IPC.

4. The deceased Ruby was married to one Mr. Sanjay Gupta and had two issues from the wedlock. The Appellant coveted her and the husband suspected an affair between his wife - the deceased and the Appellant and harassed her accusing her of the same. The deceased thereafter came to live with her maternal uncle. The Appellant pressurized the deceased’s father (PW 8) for summoning her to Porsa and threatened him with dire consequences if his demand was not fulfilled. Page 2 of 9 On that ominous night in summer, the deceased and her family members went to their respective rooms and retired for the night. The doors were kept open since it was summer. There was light in the rooms and the courtyard from some bulbs. The Appellant snuck into the room of the deceased and warned her “though she doesn’t want to live with him he is not going to let her live with anybody else”. The father of the deceased, Dataram (PW 8) woke up on hearing this and saw the Appellant running away after throwing acid on his daughter. The deceased started screaming, whereupon other family members tried to save her, the Appellant then, threw acid on the other members of the family, burning and injuring all of them. In the attack, the deceased sustained burn injuries to the extent of 90% all over her body while others also sustained burn injuries.

It is undoubtedly difficult to ignore this fact but we find that it is safer to consider the imposition of sentence based on the facts of this particular case. Unquestionably, if there is a pattern discernible across both the cases then a second conviction for murder would warrant the imposition of a death sentence. But that does not appear to be so in the present case. The earlier incident is totally unrelated to the circumstance of this case. The appellant was charged along with co-accused one Kiran Nurse for committing the murder of one Laxminarayan alias Laxman Singh in the intervening night of 27.07.1994 and 28.07.1994. The present incident took place on 21.07.2013 and the last one almost ten years before the present incident.

“209. There are numerous other circumstances justifying the passing of the lighter sentence; as there are countervailing circumstances of aggravation. “We cannot obviously feed into a judicial computer all such situations since they are astrological imponderables in an imperfect and undulating society.” Nonetheless, it cannot be over-

13. The Appeals are accordingly allowed.