A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka, Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Justice Augustine George Masih dismissed the Maharashtra government’s appeal challenging the High Court verdict.
The Supreme Court said, “The suspension of the convict by the Governor or the President for an inordinately long period of consideration of his mercy petition will certainly cause him suffering. It creates adverse physical condition and psychological stress to the convict.”
Exercising its jurisdiction under Article 32 read with Article 21 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court held that “painful delay cannot be excused merely on the basis of the gravity of the offence”.
The Supreme Court also issued some directives such as setting up dedicated cells by the Home Department or the Prisons Department of State Governments and Union Territories to deal with mercy petitions. “The dedicated cell will be responsible for expeditious processing of mercy petitions within the time limits prescribed by the respective governments,” the SC order said.
The decision of the Supreme Court has angered the families of BPO employees. “We have been denied justice. We have lost hope that the daughters of this country will get justice. They will be brutally and cruelly violated and murdered while the criminals continue to enjoy their lives. We will continue to debate the procedural issues and hope for the reformation of those criminals until it happens again. Don’t let it happen to anyone else. We didn’t get justice, we didn’t get comfort, and we didn’t get any restraint,” the 22-year-old brother told The Indian Express.
The brother-in-law said that after the Bombay High Court commuted the convicts’ death sentence to life imprisonment, his wife wrote to the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra to look into the matter and ensure that the convicts were sentenced to death.
“Maharashtra State Commission for Women had also demanded the Chief Justice of India to sentence the two accused to death. It is sad that the Supreme Court has upheld the High Court’s order in favor of the culprits who committed such a heinous crime,” he said.
A native of Uttar Pradesh, the deceased woman had graduated from a college in Pune and had joined the BPO in December 2006 as an associate. She was living in Pune with her sister and brother-in-law. On the night of November 1, 2007, which was also the last day of the notice period at the woman’s company, she was picked up by an office cab for her night shift. However, she did not return home.
On enquiry, the family members learned that he had not worked that night. On the morning of October 2, the mother-in-law lodged a missing complaint with the Chatushringi police.
On the same day, the police found his dead body in Hunje, 35 km away from Pune. His right arm was severed and his body was strangulated. The medical report confirmed that she was raped before her murder.
The woman’s sister reported that the victim’s Bangalore-based friend was unable to speak to her after a call she made during a taxi ride suddenly disconnected the previous night. Then the police arrested the taxi driver Purushottam Borate (31) and his friend Pradeep Yashwant Kokate (25).
According to the police investigation, instead of taking the woman to her workplace, both of them took her to a different route on the pretext of picking up someone from Nigdi area. They stopped her at a secluded spot, forcibly switched off her phone, repeatedly raped and strangled her. The investigation revealed that they later went to another pickup.
Although the trial of the case started in the Pune court, it got a setback after the arrest of the alleged fake lawyer Mahendra Kavchle, who was representing the accused. After he was replaced by another lawyer, Atul Patil, Kavachale had already argued some of the prosecution’s witnesses.
Demanding death penalty for the accused, the accused submitted to the court that the woman was strangled with a dupatta, her bones were broken, her head was broken with a stone and her skull was fractured and her wrist was cut with a blade.
In March 2012, the Pune District and Sessions Court sentenced two accused to death for the rape and murder of a BPO employee. The court has held that the collective consciousness of the community has been shocked by the crime which cannot be justified by the sentence of life imprisonment.
The conviction was upheld by the Bombay High Court in September 2012 and the Supreme Court in May 2015. Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao rejected their mercy petition in April 2016. Almost a year later, the then President Pranab Mukherjee also rejected their mercy petition.
Two years later, in April 2019, the Chief District and Sessions Judge of Pune issued a death warrant for the accused. According to the warrant, they were to be hanged till their death at Yerwada Central Jail in Pune on June 24, 2019 at 5 am.
However, both approached the High Court against the death warrant. They claimed that the execution of the death sentence has been delayed for about four years (1,509 days) after the Supreme Court’s verdict and demanded that the death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.
Both the central and state governments argued that there was no delay in the death penalty verdict. But in July 2019, the High Court ruled in favor of the accused and commuted their death sentence to life imprisonment for 35 years. On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed the Maharashtra government’s appeal challenging the High Court verdict and commuted their death sentences to life imprisonment.