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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Y.V. CHANDRACHUD, CJI., A.C. GUPTA, J.
Shidagouda Ningappa Ghandavar, Appellant
Versus
State of Karnataka, Respondent.
Criminal Appeal No.743 of 1980,
D/- 11-11-1980.
Advocates appeared
Mr.S.K.Bisaria, Advocate, Amicus Curiae, for Appellant; Mr.N.Nettar, Advocate, for Respondent.
Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 - Section 433A - Land Dispute – Murder - Appeal Against Conviction - Appellant committed murder of a young boy which has to be deprecated as strongly as one may but it appears that there was a land dispute between deceased father and certain other persons, which led to murder of unfortunate young boy – Held, Appellant is not a habitual criminal, circumstances which led to crime are not likely to recur and appellant has not committed crime for any personal gain - On whole Court is of opinion that ends of justice will be met by sentencing appellant to suffer imprisonment for life – Court do hope that even if validity of Section 433A of Criminal Procedure Code is upheld by this Court, Government will not, save for weighty reason, reduce or commute sentence of appellant to less than fourteen years, since, unquestionably, he has committed a very serious crime - Accordingly, Court set aside death sentence imposed upon appellant and instead, impose sentence of life imprisonment on him - Appeal dismissed.
Judgment
Y.V. CHANDRACHUD, CJI. :- Heard counsel. Special leave granted.
2. It is true that both the Sessions Court and the High Court have given "special reasons" for imposing death sentence upon the appellant. We have carefully considered every one of those special reasons but we are unable to agree that this is a proper case for imposing the death sentence. We have held recently in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, AIR 1980 SC 898 that the rule that the normal sentence for the offence of murder is life imprisonment should be observed both in letter and in spirit. We had, therefore, to emphasise in that case that the death sentence should be imposed in very extreme cases.
3. The appellant committed the murder of a young boy which has to be deprecated as strongly as one may but it appears that there was a land dispute between the deceased father and certain other persons, which led to the murder of the unfortunate young boy. The appellant is not a habitual criminal, the circumstances which led to the crime are not likely to recur and the appellant has not committed the crime for any personal gain. On the whole we are of the opinion that the ends of justice will be met by sentencing the appellant to suffer imprisonment for life.
4. We do hope that even if the validity of Section 433A of the Criminal Procedure Code is upheld by this Court, the Government will not, save for weighty reason, reduce or commute the sentence of the appellant to less than fourteen years, since, unquestionably, he has committed a very serious crime.
5. Accordingly, we set aside the death sentence imposed upon the appellant and instead, impose the sentence of life imprisonment on him. With this modification the appeal is dismissed.
Order accordingly.
For Citation : AIR 1981 SC 764
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