The court's decision to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment was based on the consideration of relevant factors and legislative policy under Sections 354(3) and 235(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

ORDER

Review Petition (Crl.) No. of 2022 (Diary No. 14115 of 2022)

1. This Review Petition has been preferred by the mother of the deceased prosecutrix and as such the permission to file the Review Petition is granted.

2. In the instant Review Petition, exception is taken to the commutation of death sentence which was awarded by the High Court to that of the sentence for imprisonment of life for the offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code ('the IPC', for short). It is submitted inter alia that as against the decision of this Court in Shatrughna Baban Meshram v. State of Maharashtra (2021 (1) SCC 596), the death was caused by conscious act on the part of the accused and that the matter was not under Clause fourthly of Section 300 IPC.

3. As a matter of fact, in the conclusion drawn by this Court in Paragraph 36 of its judgment, it was recorded that the accused had inflicted bodily injury as mentioned in the post-mortem report and as such he was rightly convicted under offences including Section 302 of the IPC. This Court went further in holding that the accused would also be guilty under Section 376A of the IPC in respect of which sentence was not imposed by any of the Courts below, as the matter was found to be completely covered by the provisions of Section 376A of the IPC.

4. However, after considering the landmark decisions of this Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980 (2) SCC 684) and Machi Singh and Others v. State of Punjab (1983 (3) SCC 470), this Court did not deem it appropriate to sustain the sentence of death awarded under Section 302 of the IPC. As the discussion in Paragraph 40 and 41 indicates, the legislative policy under Sections 354 (3) and 235 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 was noted and the commutation as aforesaid was directed.

5. As the record indicates, even after conclusion of hearing, certain material from the Probation Officer and Director General of Prison, Trained Psychiatrist were also called so that the matter pertaining to sentence to be awarded could be considered. Thus, the commutation of sentence of death to that of life imprisonment was done by the Court after bestowing attention to the relevant factors.

6. In the circumstances, no case is made out to take a different view in the matter and this Review Petition is dismissed.

Review Petition (Crl.) No. of 2022 (Diary No.15926 of 2022)

7. Unlike the earlier Review Petition which was filed by the mother of the prosecutrix, the instant petition has been preferred by an organization namely Bharatiya Stree Shakti. Since the challenge raised by the mother of the deceased has been dealt with in the earlier part of the order, we see no reason to entertain the instant Review Petition which is, accordingly, dismissed.