The Punjab and Haryana High Court has handed out a 30-year jail term to a man for the rape and murder of a minor girl in 2018 and observed that the family members, particularly mothers in India, treat their “precious sons as raja betas” no matter how “imperfect or villainous” they might be.
Justices Anoop Chitkara and Sukhvinder Kaur was hearing the appeal of a mother-son duo who was convicted in the rape and murder case relating to a five-year-old minor girl.
“Unfortunately, in this part of India, family members, especially mothers, often have such blind love for their ‘precious’ sons that, no matter how imperfect or villainous they might be, they are still regarded as ‘Raja Betas’,” the court said.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 30 lakh on the convict to be paid to the child’s family.
On May 31, 2018, the minor was raped and murdered by her father’s employee. Her father worked as a small-time tent installer, and the accused had been working with him for about five-six years.
The accused allegedly took the minor to his home, where he raped and killed her with a kitchen knife, and hid her body in a big kitchen container in which his mother used as a storage container, after emptying it.
At that time, the accused’s mother had gone out for duty.
After some villagers pointed out that they had seen the minor with the accused when he was taking her towards his home, the owner of a local school where CCTV was installed was contacted. The video recordings showed the accused taking her by holding her hand.
The family members, along with others, reached the accused’s house, where his mother was present.
When they enquired about the minor victim and the accused, she denied their presence, but when they tried to enter, she refused to let them in.
One of the child’s cousins noticed a container lying in the compound, and her body was found in it.
The accused was booked under Sections 302 (murder), 376 (rape), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 366 (Kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage, etc), 363 (kidnapping), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) of the IPC, and Section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.
Even his mother was booked under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage, etc), 363 (kidnapping), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender).
On January 24, 2020, the trial court convicted the mother-son duo and sentenced the accused to capital punishment whereas his mother was sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment.
The mother and son subsequently challenged their punishments in the high court.
Terming the mother’s attempt to shield her son, the court said, the social attitude, however appalling, was not new and “deeply embedded in the region’s patriarchal mindset and culture”.
“The mother, after discovering that her Raja-beta, was not as gullible as his name suggested, and he had assaulted and brutally killed a girl-child aged five, prioritised shielding her son instead of informing the police or seeking justice for the girl,” the court said.
Taking note that due to her “orthodox conditioning,” she attempted to protect her “Raja-beta,” whereas in a civilised society, this “barbaric incident” would not have happened, and if any such crime still happened, then a mother would have preferred justice for the minor girl than for her “Raja-beta”, it added.
Acquitting the mother of all charges, the court stated that her only fault was that she was trying to protect her “Raja-beta”, for which she cannot be punished; however, her conduct may be condemnable.
Calling the crime gruesome, the court said that the minor girl had “absolute trust” and did not “suspect the probable evil of a devil”.
“To save the other kids and females, the convict must stay inside the four walls of the prison until he is closer to the sunset of his virility,” the order said.
It would be justified and would also safeguard the other girls on the street from the “pervertedness” of the convict, it added.
Commuting the death penalty to 30 years, the court said it would be right not to put all the punitive eggs in the “hanging” basket but hopefully to try the “humane mix”.
“While deterrence through threat of death may still be a promising strategy in some frightful areas of murderous crime, to espouse a monolithic theory of its deterrent efficacy is unscientific,” the court said.
Stating that the murder of the child was because of “panic” to destroy evidence of rape and not a premeditated act, the court said the convict’s life should not be taken away by the judicial process.
“Instead, to save the children and females, he can be incapacitated by imposing a suitable sentence that is also proportionate to the heinous and gruesome crime of raping and killing a girl aged 5½ years, whom the accused was well familiar with,” the bench noted.
The court said that any sentence to be proportionate must be stable and balanced like a table, and for any table to be stable, all its legs must be comparable.
“Thus, the Courts, while awarding a sentence, are under an obligation to consider the (a) Crime, (b) Victim, (c) Criminal and his family, and (d) Society and the State,” it added.