4/1/24, 6:04 PM Shankar Kisanrao Khade vs State Of Maharashtra on 25 April, 2013

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Shankar Kisanrao Khade vs State Of Maharashtra on 25 April, 2013

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4. State of Maharashtra v. Suresh [(2000) 1 SCC 471] This Court in that case commuted the death sentence to life
imprisonment where a girl of 4 years old was raped and murdered. Though this Court felt that the case was perilously near the
region of rarest of the rare cases, but refrained from imposing extreme penalty. “Criminal test” was applied and narrowly
escaped death sentence.

5. Amrit Singh v. State of Punjab [AIR 2007 SC 132] This Court commuted death sentence to that of life imprisonment in a
case, where a 7-8 years old girl was raped and murdered by the accused aged 31 years. The Court noticed the manner in
which the deceased was raped, it was brutal, but held it could have been a momentary lapse on the part of the accused, seeing a
lonely girl at a secluded place and there was no pre- meditation for commission of the crime. “Criminal test” it is seen, has
been applied in favour of the accused to avoid death sentence.

25. In Bachan Singh and Machhi Singh cases, this Court laid down various principles for awarding sentence:

“Aggravating circumstances – (Crime test)

1. The offences relating to the commission of heinous crimes like murder, rape, armed dacoity, kidnapping etc. by the
accused with a prior record of conviction for capital felony or offences committed by the person having a substantial
history of serious assaults and criminal convictions.

2. The offence was committed while the offender was engaged in the commission of another serious offence.

16. In Bantu v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2001) 9 SCC 615 this Court converted the death sentence awarded to the
accused to imprisonment for life. The accused was a 22 year old man who had raped and murdered a 6 year old child. It
was acknowledged that the rape and murder was heinous, but this Court took into account that the accused had no
previous criminal record and that he would not be a grave danger to society at large. On this basis, the death penalty was
converted to life imprisonment. This is what was said:

“We are, therefore, of the opinion that in the light of the findings recorded by Ganguly, J. it would not be proper to
maintain the death sentence on the appellant….”

26. Incidentally, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was also 27 years of age when he committed the offence of rape and murder,
while Rameshbhai Chandubhai Rathod was 28 years of age when he committed the offence.

27. In Haresh Mohandas Rajput v. State of Maharashtra, (2011) 12 SCC 56 the Trial Court had awarded life sentence to
the accused for the rape and murder of a 10 year old child but the High Court enhanced it to a sentence of death. Taking
into account the view of the Trial Court, this Court converted the death sentence to one of life imprisonment. It was
observed:

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