Jharkhand Supreme Court upholds death sentence in brutal rape and murder case

The Jharkhand High Court has upheld the death sentence for a man convicted of raping and murdering a 19-year-old woman in Ranchi, stressing that victimisation is about more than mere compensation.

The Division bench consists of Justices Ananda Sen and Gautam Kumar Choudhary noted, “Victimology is not only about compensating victims, which cannot be compensation for the precious life lost in such cases as a result of a crime. It is also about imposing a punishment that is appropriate to the nature and gravity of the crime. We will be failing the victim and society if the death penalty is not imposed in such cases.”

The incident took place in 2016 when the 19-year-old victim, a student at RTC Institute of Technology, was brutally attacked while she was returning home from her classes. The victim lived in Booti Basti, Ranchi and was alone in her house at the time of the crime. The next morning, the informant’s daughter tried to contact her but found her mobile phone switched off. The informant became worried and asked a neighbour, Anil Kumar Singh’s wife, to check on the victim. When the neighbour arrived, she found the door ajar and smoke coming from the house. Inside the house, the victim was found badly burned with the bed and mattress still burning.

The police were informed and a First Information Report (FIR) was filed under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 448 (trespass), 302 (murder), 376 (rape) and 201 (disappearance of evidence). After an investigation, charges were framed against the accused, which led to a trial in which the lower court found the accused guilty and sentenced him to death.

The accused appealed against the conviction and sentence, arguing that the case was based solely on circumstantial evidence. The defence stressed that it is a well-established legal principle that circumstantial evidence must form a continuous chain that clearly points to the accused’s guilt without any alternative explanation. The appellant’s lawyer also pointed out that the accused is a 25-year-old man with no previous convictions, which must be taken into account in mitigating the sentence.

The prosecution, however, refuted these allegations and portrayed the accused as a known criminal with a history of offences including pending charges under Sections 376 (rape) and 380 (theft) of the IPC and Section 66/66A of the Information Technology Act. It was further submitted that the accused had previously absconded after being released on interim bail and was involved in several theft cases in Ranchi, Patna and Lucknow. The state argued that the heinous nature of the crime coupled with the accused’s criminal past justified the imposition of death penalty.

After examining the evidence, the court concluded that the crime was not a spontaneous act, but a deliberate and carefully executed attack.

The Court found: “This is not a case where the crime was the result of a sudden outburst of anger, but a case where it was devilishly planned and recklessly executed. Evidence shows that the accused stalked the deceased, tried to rent a room in her house and thereafter stayed in a room in a nearby temple complex. He waited for the opportune moment and when the victim was alone in her house on the night of the incident, the offence was committed and immediately thereafter the accused fled from the scene.”

“Escape is a circumstance relevant under section 8 of the Evidence Act and since no explanation was given for it, one can draw an adverse inference of escape after the crime. Each of these circumstances was conclusively proved by eyewitness accounts. The appellant did not give a plausible explanation for these proved circumstances but gave false answers, which lengthens the chain of circumstances. The DNA profile prepared from the vaginal swab matches that of the appellant’s blood sample.” The court further stated:

The court stressed that deterrence, along with reform and crime prevention, is a recognized goal of criminal law. The guidelines for imposing the death penalty have been established by a number of precedents.

The court noted that this was not the first offence of the accused as he had previously raped a minor girl, filmed the incident and made it viral. After being released on bail, he absconded. The court also noted that he was involved in several theft cases including theft of mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices in Patna, Lucknow and Ranchi where he had been accused in most of the cases.

“To conceal his identity, he used stolen mobile phones. These cases relate both to the period before and after the present incident in 2016. The complainant’s conduct does not reveal any semblance of remorse and hope for improvement. … Given these aggravating circumstances, it is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to find mitigating circumstances.” the court said.

For these reasons, the court confirmed the death sentence imposed by the lower court and dismissed the appeal.

Case Title: The State of Jharkhand v. Rahul Kumar

LL Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Jha) 148

Click here to read the judgment