Judgement

CHANDRACHUD, CJI.:- Kuljeet Singh alias Ranga Khus the petitioner herein was convicted alone with one Jasbir Singh alias Billa, by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Delhi for various offences in connection with the murder of two young children Geeta Chopra and her brother Sanjay. The two accused were sentenced to death for the offence under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code and to varying terms of imprisonment under Secs. 363,365, 366 and 376 read with Section 34 of the Code. The order of conviction and sentence, including the sentence of death, was confirmed by the Delhi High Court, by its judgment dated November 16, 1979* whereupon the two accused filed Special Leave Petitions 562 and 1739 of 1980 in this Court, challenging their conviction and sentence. Those Special Leave Petitions were dismissed on December 8, 1980 by a Bench of this Court consisting of, Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy, Justice Baharul Islam and one of us, the Chief Justice. By this Writ Petition the petitioner virtually asks for the reappraisal of his case and a reconsideration of the dismissal of his Special Leave Petition. The thrust of the petition is against the sentence of death imposed on the petitioner.

* Reported in ILR (1979) 2 Delhi 571

2. By an order dated February 24, 1981 the learned Chamber Judge, Justice A. C. Gupta, had stayed the execution of the death sentence pending disposal of the Writ Petition. By an order dated March 23, 1981 we had directed that the petitioner should be produced on March 30 in the Chief Justices Chamber and that the execution of the death sentence should be stayed until further order. The petitioner was accordingly produced before us in the presence of his counsel, Shri R. K. Garg, Counsel for the Union of India and the Delhi Administration were also present. We questioned the petitioner on matters bearing, as we thought, on the question of sentence. We will refer to the result of that somewhat unusual exercise a little later.

3. First, regarding the conviction itself. There is voluminous evidence of unimpeachable character which establishes conclusively the complicity of the petitioner in the murder of Geeta and Sanjay. Dr. M. S. Nanda (PW 56) gave a life to Geeta and Sanjay from Dhaula Kuan to Gol Dak-khana. Bhagwan Das (PW 6), who was going along on a scooter, rang up the Police Control Room at 6.44 P. M. saying that a woman was shouting "Bachao, Bachao" in a Fiat Car and that he saw a scuffle going on between the woman and the driver on one hand and between the boy and the person sitting next to the driver on the other. The man sitting next to the driver was the petitioner himself. The information given by Bhagwan Das was reduced into writing by the police officer, the report being Ex. PW 61-A. Bhagwan Das had mentioned over the telephone that the number of the car was HRK 8930 but it was wrongly taken down as MRK 8930.

4. Inderjeet Singh (PW 9) another public spirited citizen like Bhagwan Das who works in the Delhi Development Authority as a Junior Engineer, chased the Fiat Car on his scooter, since he heard the shrieks of a girl coming from the Fiat Car and saw the boy and the girl fighting with the two men who were sitting on the front seat. As he was chasing the car the boy was showing to him his bleeding shoulder through the back windscreen of the car. Inderjeet Singh chased the car over some distance, but whereas he was bound by the traffic rules and had to stop at the red traffic signal, the Fiat car had the liberty to jump the signal and speed away. After the light turned green, Indeerjeet Singh resumed his chase but could not find the car. He therefore went straight to the Rajinder Nagar Police Station and lodged his report. Ex. PW-9-A. He told the police that he saw a scuffle between the boy and the girl who were seated on the back seat on one hand and the two men who were seated on the front seat in a Fiat car, HRK 8930. The police felt obsessed by their notorious difficulty t