The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the death penalty awarded to a man from Punjab for killing six close relatives of his wife, including two minors, in Fatehgarh Sahib in 2012.
A three-judge Bench of Justice AK Sikri, Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Justice MR Shah upheld the death penalty imposed on Khushwinder Singh by the trial court and confirmed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, terming the murders as “rarest of rare”.
“In the facts and circumstances of the case, we are of the opinion that there is no alternative punishment suitable, except the death sentence. The crime is committed with extremist brutality and the collective conscious of the society would be shocked,” said Justice MR Shah, writing the verdict for the Bench.
“We are of the opinion that the capital punishment/death sentence imposed by the learned Sessions Court and confirmed by the High Court does not warrant any interference by this Court. Therefore, we confirm the death sentence of the accused imposed by the learned Sessions Court and confirmed by the High Court while convicting the appellant for the offence punishable under Section 302 IPC,” it said.
If executed, Khushwinder Singh will be the first non-terror convict to be hanged since the August 2004 execution of Dhananjoy Chatterjee who had killed and raped a minor in West Bengal.
All executions after 2004 have been in terror cases -- be it Parliament Attack Case (Afzal Guru), Mumbai 26/11 case (Ajmal Kasab) or the 1993 Mumbai blasts case (Yakub Memon).
After this verdict, convict Khushwinder can’t be immediately executed. He can file a petition seeking review of the verdict and if he fails, a curative petition before the Supreme Court.
After exhausting these two legal remedies, he can file a mercy petition and even challenge the rejection of his mercy petition by the President before the Supreme Court.
Khushwinder Singh had murdered six close relatives of his wife Manjit Kaur in June 2012. Sessions Court, Fatehgarh Sahib, had on March 15, 2013 awarded him death penalty which was confirmed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on September 20, 2013.
“In the present case, the accused has killed six innocent persons, out of which two were minors – below 10 years of age. Almost, all the family members of PW-5 (Jasmeen Kaur) were done to death in a diabolical and dastardly manner. Fortunately, or unfortunately, only one person of the family of PW-5 could survive.
“In the present case, the accused has killed six innocent persons in a pre-planned manner. The convict meticulously planned the time.
He first kidnapped three persons by way of deception and took them to the canal and after drugging them with sleeping tablets, pushed them in the canal at midnight to ensure that the crime is not detected. That, thereafter he killed another three persons in the second stage/instalment,” it said.
Noting that the case fell in the category of the “rarest of rare case” warranting capital punishment, the top court said: “The aggravating circumstances are in favour of the prosecution and against the accused.
Therefore, striking a balance between the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, we are of the opinion that the aggravating circumstance would tilt the balance in favour of the capital punishment.”