The Supreme Court on Thursday commuted the death sentence of a man convicted of raping and murdering his six-year-old stepdaughter in Madhya Pradesh, while upholding his conviction.
A Bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Vijay Bishnoi converted the death sentence awarded to Waris into life imprisonment.
Waris was convicted by the Special Court under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Jaora, on December 17, 2018, under Sections 376(2)(f), 376(2)(n), 376AB, 302 and 201 of the IPC and Sections 5/6 of the POCSO Act. The trial court had sentenced him to death under Sections 376AB and 302 IPC and imposed five years’ rigorous imprisonment under Section 201 IPC.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court subsequently upheld both his conviction and death sentence, following which he approached the Supreme Court. The deceased child was the daughter of Waris’s third wife from her previous marriage. The High Court had relied on the testimony of the child’s mother, medical evidence and DNA evidence to conclude that Waris had sexually assaulted the child.
The post-mortem examination revealed multiple injuries on the child’s body, with the medical panel concluding that her death was caused by asphyxiation due to throttling. The DNA report also showed that male Y-chromosome material recovered from the child’s clothes matched Waris’s Y-chromosome DNA profile.
The child’s mother testified that Waris had sexually assaulted her daughter on multiple occasions and subjected her to physical violence. She stated that on April 21, 2018, Waris had assaulted and sexually assaulted the child. The following day, after hearing the child’s muffled cries, she allegedly found Waris withdrawing his hands from the child’s neck, following which the child collapsed.
The High Court had rejected Waris’s plea of alibi, finding inconsistencies between his testimony and that of his defence witnesses. It also noted that persons whom he claimed to have been accompanying at the relevant time were not examined as defence witnesses.
The High Court further found that Waris had attempted to conceal the crime by failing to take the injured child to a doctor, concealing the clothes she was wearing at the time of the assault and attempting to have her body cremated before the police were informed.
While confirming the death sentence, the High Court had applied the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab and Macchi Singh v. State of Punjab, requiring courts to balance aggravating and mitigating circumstances before imposing capital punishment.
It had also applied the “Crime Test”, “Criminal Test” and “Rarest of Rare Test” laid down in Shankar Kisan Rao Khade v. State of Maharashtra, concluding that the case fell within the “rarest of rare” category warranting capital punishment.
The Supreme Court, however, while maintaining Waris’s conviction, has now commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
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