SC sets aside death awarded to man in dacoity, murder case

 

 

 

THE Supreme Court has set aside the death penalty awarded to a man convicted of dacoity and murder of a couple in Ahmednagar in Maharashtra and sentenced him to life imprisonment. A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra and KV Viswanathan restored the October 21, 2013 order of the Ahmednagar trial court and set aside the high court order awarding death sentence to one Shivkumar Ramsundar Saket. The bench refused to interfere with the conviction orders of the trial court and the April 8, 2022 order of the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court. “We find that the trial judge as well as the judges of the high court have correctly appreciated the material on record and come to a conclusion that the appellants are guilty of committing the crime,” the bench said in its order dated September 26. The apex court found no reason to interfere with the “well-reasoned” judgment and order of the trial judge as well as the High Court on the aspect of conviction.

 

The top court, however, said that as far as capital punishment was concerned, the High Court was not justified in imposing it. “The trial judge upon consideration of the material placed on record had come to a considered conclusion that the present case did not fit in the category of ‘rarest of rare cases’. Therefore, unless the finding recorded by the trial judge was found to be perverse or impossible, the high court ought not to have interfered with the same,” it said. The bench further noted that the role played by Saket was similar to all the other accused persons and his case could not have been segregated to award him a death penalty “While sustaining the conviction of appellant, Shivkumar Ramsundar Saket, we are inclined to partly allow the appeal,” it added. All the accused persons were found guilty of committing dacoity and murder of Ramesh Munot and Chitra Munot at their residence in Manik Nagar of Ahmednagar on December 2, 2007.

 

The mortal remains of the couple were found the following morning in the living room of the house. Of the total accused persons, four men had previously been employed as watchmen at the couple’s residence and the remaining two men were their associates. One accused, Rajesh Singh Hariharsingh Thakur, had died during pendency of the proceedings.