Calcutta High Court commutes death sentence of man convicted of rape, murder of minor girl

The Calcutta High Court recently commuted the death sentence of a man, who was convicted for raping and murdering a minor girl [Kamrujjaman Sarkar @ Kama @ Kamrul vs State of West Bengal]..A division bench of Justices Debangsu Basu and Md. Shabbar Rashidi noted that though the victim was killed in a gruesome manner leaving her comatose for 15 days, the case did not pass the 'rarest of rare' test warranting a death sentence."The victim had been raped and murdered. The manner in which the crime had been committed although gruesome cannot be said to come within the purview of rarest of rare cases. We could not convince ourselves that award of death penalty to the appellant in the facts of the present case was justified although, rape and murder had been established conclusively," the bench observed in its order..The bench noted that the victim was 16 years old at the relevant time and had suffered aggravated sexual assault by the appellant before being killed.The Court also took into account a report filed by the State government revealing that the appellant was booked earlier in 13 criminal cases, of which 7 were related to murder.Hence, the Court while commuting death penalty imposed on the convict to life imprisonment made it clear that he will not be eligible for remission of sentence for 25 years. "In such circumstances, we commute the death sentence awarded as against the appellant to life imprisonment without the possibility of remission for a period of 25 years from the date of his arrest in this police case, taking into account the age of the appellant, the age of the victim and the nature of the crime," the bench ordered..The bench was seized of a criminal appeal challenging the July 6, 2020 verdict of the trial court awarding death sentence. The trial court had premised its judgment on the testimonies of the victim's mother and two witnesses, who had seen the appellant entering and exiting the victim's house at the relevant time. The trial court had also relied upon the medical evidence stating that the victim suffered injuries on her body and private parts due to sexual violence and even an injury on her head due to a blunt object like an iron rod. As per the prosecution case, the appellant had on May 30, 2019, entered the victim's house at evening time, when she was alone. He raped her and then killed her by strangulating her with a gamcha (cloth) and hitting her on the head with an iron rod. The incident came to light when her mother, who worked as a domestic help, returned and saw the victim lying on bed in a vegetative state. .The appellant claimed that the iron rod, which was recovered from him was easily available in the market and that he was falsely implicated in the case. The Court, however, noted that the prosecution had led overwhelming evidence at the trial including evidence of the doctors treating the victim and the doctor conducting the post mortem on the victim which proved that the injuries suffered by the victim were by a blunt substance such as an iron rod.The bench, therefore, confirmed the conviction of the appellant but did not uphold the sentence of death..Senior Advocate Sekhar Kumar Basu along with advocate Arnab Chatterjee appeared for the Appellant.Additional Public Prosecutor Neguive Ahmed along with advocate Amita Gaur represented the State.Advocate Soumyajit Das Mahapatra represented the Complainant..[Read Judgment]