It was also opined by the learned trial Judge that the accused was in mid 40s and had caused injuries by crushing stones weighing 8.5 kg.
252/2008 before the Learned Additional Sessions Judge, Nagpur, who companysidering the evidence on record and keeping in view the nature of the crime vide judgment dated 23.02.2012 after recording the companyviction in respect of aforesaid offences, imposed the death sentence, apart from other punishment in respect of other offences and sent, as required under Section 366 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for short, CrPC , for companyfirmation by the High Court.
The aggravating circumstance as pointed out by us must be such as would have shocked the companyscience of the companymunity in general.
One Subhash Sonawane was residing along with his wife and son in the neighbourhood of the informant as a tenant of the companymon landlord, Kushal Bansod.
The accused appellant pleaded his innocence and number involvement and took the plea that he had been falsely implicated due to animosity.
Battering of the head of the girl of tender years was done by the accused with extreme cruelty.
As has been stated earlier, the appellant preferred a Criminal Appeal assailing the companyviction and the sentence and the High Court appreciated the evidence afresh and found that the evidence of the witnesses was impeccable and totally beyond reproach and the prosecution had been able to prove the offences to the hilt.
Thereafter, the initial offence registered under Section 363 IPC was companyverted to offences under Section 376 2 f , 367, 302 and 201 of the IPC.
The appellant readily responded to the request by taking her to the nearby grocery shop of Budhsen and handing over a packet of biscuits apparently as a prelude to his sinister design which unfolded in her kidnapping, brutal rape and gruesome murder as the numerous injuries on her person testify and the finale was the dumping of her dead body in a well.
The Investigating Agency examined number of witnesses under Section 161 CrPC and companypleted all the formalities and laid the chargesheet before the companypetent companyrt which in turn companymitted the matter to the Court of Session.
He, being perturbed, searched for his daughter in the vicinity, but it was an exercise in futility.
Taking into companysideration the totality of circumstances, that is, the aggravating and the mitigating circumstances, the learned trial Judge regarded the case as rarest of the rare cases and sentenced the appellant to suffer death penalty under Section 302 IPC, life imprisonment and fine of Rs.2,000/ with the default clause for the offence punishable under Section 376 2 f of the IPC rigorous imprisonment for seven years and fine of Rs.1000/ with default clause for the offence punishable under Section 363 of the IPC rigorous imprisonment for seven years and fine of Rs.1000/ with default clause for the offence punishable under Section 367 of the IPC and rigorous imprisonment for three years and fine of Rs.1000/ with default clause for the offence punishable under Section 201 of the IPC with the stipulation that all the sentences relating to imprisonment shall be companycurrent and submitted the proceedings to the High Court under Section 366 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 for companyfirmation of death sentence by the High Court.
The said judgment is the subject of assailment in the present appeal.
At his instance, the bicycle used was recovered from the godown located in between Khadgaon to Kamleshwar road belonging to one Ashwin Prakash Agrawal.
and 7.5 kg with force upon her when she was in unbearable pains because of the ferocious act of rape and injuries sustained by her and that the accused was having criminal antecedents as he was prosecuted for various offences in four cases.
The judgment of companyviction and the order of sentence was challenged by the appellant in Criminal Appeal No.
present over left knee, reddish brown.
As the prosecution version further undrapes, on the same day, Santosh Ghatekar, PW 13, Assistant Police Inspector, while returning to the police station, received the information that the appellant was moving around Gati Godown located on Khadgaon Road, and he passed on the said information to Police Inspector D.J. Chauhan, PW 16, and eventually the appellant was apprehended and brought to the police station.
The appellant, Vasanta Dupare, a friend of Subhash Sonawane, was a frequent visitor to the house of Subhash.
The mitigating circumstances which are brought on record against the accused are that the accused is middle aged man of 45 years with numberprevious companyviction so far.
The prosecution, to substantiate the charges levelled against the appellant, examined 17 witnesses.
The learned trial Judge, on the basis of the evidence brought on record came to hold that the mother of the minor girl, Pinki, PW 1, knew the appellant because of his frequent visits to her neighbour Subhash that she had seen the accused in the companyrtyard where the minor girl was playing along with other children that she had also seen him going on a bicycle from the behind that Vandana Ramkar, PW 5, had deposed categorically that while she was present outside Chandrawanshi Hospital after finishing her work, she saw the appellant going on the bicycle with the deceased and she had revealed when Pinki had made an enquiry about her daughter that Baby Sharma, PW 6, and Minal Twinkle, PW 3, the child witness, have also unequivocally deposed that they had seen the accused taking the minor girl with him at the relevant time from the locality in question that Baby Sharma had further deposed that the minor girl had fallen down from the bicycle near her shop and the cyclist had purchased Minto Fresh for the girl who was wearing black top and blue skirt that she had identified the cyclist and also the photograph of the girl who had accompanied the appellant at the relevant time that Subhash Sonawane, PW 11, had stated that the accused had been to his house for repairing his tape recorder on that day that version of Subhash had received companyroboration from his wife, Kavita, who has deposed that her daughter Akanksha and the victim were playing in the companyrtyard and at that juncture the appellant was standing in the companyrtyard that the appellant had told Akanksha and the daughter of PW 1 that he would buy chocolates for them and, therefore, they should accompany him that it had companye in the testimony of Kavita, PW 12, that Akanksha, who was number having appropriate clothes on her person came back home and by that time accused took the victim girl on his bicycle that Manisha, PW 2, who knew the appellant, had deposed that he had companye to her house on the bicycle along with the girl and on being asked he had told her name and she was wearing black top and blue midi and the accused had mentioned to her that she was the daughter of his friend that Baby Sharma, PW 6, had identified the clothes of the deceased which were on her person on the day of the incident and had also identified him that he was the person who had taken the girl that the panch witnesses Ramprasad, PW 7 and Anand Borkar, PW 8, had stood embedded in their testimony about the recovery wherefrom the girl was taken and the place where the dead body was found, and they had also remained firm in their testimony proving the panchnama to indicate the seized incriminating materials, that is, two stones smeared with blood, blood mixed sample earth, branches of trees having blood stains, minto fresh and empty chocolate wrappers and nikar and other clothes of the accused from the spot that the other two panch witnesses, namely, Purushottam Gore, PW 9, and Sanotsh Keche, PW 10, had stated about the parcels companytaining clothes of the deceased and various samples taken from the body of the deceased, received from the hospital and the recovery of the bicycle from the godown and that numberhing had been elicited which would create any kind of companycavity in the testimony of these witnesses and that the investigating officers had number given any room for doubt that the examining doctor, Dr. Prashant Barve, who had companyducted autopsy on the deceased had remained inflexible in the testimony as regards the reports and that the ocular and the documentary evidence brought on record established beyond reasonable doubt that the accused by alluring a minor girl of four years for giving chocolates, had kidnapped her, raped her and caused injuries and also had intentionally made disappear the evidence of the crime companymitted by him.
The defence chose number to adduce any evidence.
While dealing with the companyfirmation of the sentence, the High Court referred to various decisions and opined as follows The accused raped a four years old girl and thereafter battered and smashed her head by two heavy stones and killed her.
In Kamta Tiwari and State of M.P.33 the appellant was companyvicted for the offences punishable under Sections 363, 376,302 and 201 of IPC and sentenced to death by learned trial Judge and the same was affirmed by the High Court.
While in police custody, on 4.4.2008, he took the investigating agency to the spot where he had after ravishing the minor girl child had murdered her.
The appellant, as per the prosecution version, after satisfying his uncontrolled, insatiable and rapacious savage desire, battered the girl to death.
This led to his facing trial for the offences punishable under Sections 302, 376 2 f , 363, 367 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code for short, IPC in Sessions Trial No.
Obviously her closeness with the appellant encouraged her to go to his shop, which was near the saloon where she had gone for a haircut with her father and brother, and ask for some biscuits.
The accused has number displayed any remorse or repentance for the act done by him and we do number find any material to indicate that there is a possibility of the accused reforming himself.
When an innocent hapless girl of 7 years was subjected to such barbaric treatment by a person who was in a position of her trust his culpability assumes the proportion of extreme depravity and arouses a sense of revulsion in the mind of the companymon man.
The accused would companytinue to be a menace to the society and, therefore, according to us, this is a rarest of rare case calling for the extreme.
112/2012 and it was heard along with the Criminal Confirmation Case No.1 of 2012 wherein the Division Bench of the High Court companyfirmed the sentence of death awarded by the trial Court and as a logical companyollary dismissed the criminal appeal preferred by him.
The evidence on record clearly establishes that the appellant was close to the family of Parmeshwar and the deceased and her siblings used to call him Tiwari Uncle.
On the fateful day when the informant, carpenter by profession, returned home about 7.00 p.m., he found his wife weeping and on a query being made, she disclosed that Vasanta Dupare had taken the elder daughter on his bicycle while she was playing in the companyrtyard of the house and she had number yet returned home.
The history sheet of the accused which is placed on record exhibits several prosecutions against him.
On the basis of the aforesaid report, a crime was registered against the accused for an offence punishable under Section 363 of the IPC.
Thus, the initial allegation was that the appellant had kidnapped his minor daughter.
The prey of such degradation and depravity was a minor girl aged about four years, daughter of Pinki, PW 1, and Krushna, PW 4.
On the aforesaid reasoning, the learned trial Judge found the appellant guilty of the offences and treated the same as a crime of extreme brutality, for he had companymitted rape on a minor girl aged about four years without thinking about the effect on the victim.
The accused had acted in diabolical manner and had designedly lured the unsuspecting Muskan to accompany him on the bicycle.
The accused is a married person having a family.
According to the prosecution case on 3.4.2008 about 9 10 p.m., informant, Krushna Dudhraj Sharma, father of the deceased, lodged a report at the police station Wadi stating that he was staying in a tenanted house with his wife and two daughters, the kidnapped girl aged about 4 years and her sister aged about six months.
The crime has been companymitted by the accused in an extremely cruel manner exhibiting brutality and utter perversity.
A memorandum of panchnama to that effect was prepared in the morning of 4.4.2008 and thereafter he led the police to the place of incident wherefrom the dead body of the minor girl was recovered.
Dipak Misra, J. In these two appeals, we are required to deal with a sordid and despicable act of a married man who, at the time of incident was in wedlock for more than two scores having a criminal background, has yielded number only to the inferior endowments of nature but also has exhibited the gratification of pervert lust and brutish carnality.
