INDIA: ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE OF RAPE-MURDER CONVICT TO 30-YEAR JAIL TERM

March 5, 2024:

The Allahabad High Court has commuted the death sentence given to a man, who was convicted of raping and murdering a three-year-old girl in 2021, to 30-year jail term, PTI reported on March 5, 2024.
Commuting the death penalty, the court observed that the convict had no criminal history so "chances of his reformation" cannot be ruled out.
The bench comprising Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi partly allowed the criminal appeal of Dinesh Paswan who was awarded death sentence by the district court of Fatehpur.
Advocate Tanisha Jahangir Monir appearing for Paswan submitted that the appellant was falsely implicated merely on the basis of suspicion.
The case is of circumstantial evidence, the chain of which is incomplete, the advocate said.
"Place of incident was not fixed as the body of the deceased was not found at the alleged place of occurrence (the rented room of the appellant), admittedly (as per mother of the deceased) the body was found at her maternal grandparents' house, where the inquest was conducted," argued Monir.
After hearing the parties concerned, the court in its recent order said, "The offence is of a very heinous nature and committed in a gruesome manner." However, the court commuted the death sentence while observing, "The age of the accused as recorded in his statement under Section 313 CrPC on December 8, 2021 was 25 years, so the accused is a young person. It is also established from the evidence on record that he is married, having a child. There is neither any criminal history to the credit of the appellant-accused nor he is a previous convict so chances of his reformation cannot be ruled out. These are the mitigating circumstances."
An FIR was lodged by the mother of the child at Khaga police station of Fatehpur alleging that Dinesh Paswan enticed her daughter away to his room and committed the heinous crime and murdered her.
Paswan was awarded the death penalty on January 18, 2022 by the district court.