C. HARI SHANKAR, J.

1. There are no frills in this story. It is an account of human depravity carried to such an unmentionable extreme, that there remains no room for embellishment or embroidery. It has to be told, and told with brutal directness.

2. PW-21 Sunita, who worked as a maid in the houses of the residents of KU-Block, Pitampura, proceeded to work at 3 p.m. on 11th July, 2011, leaving her 8 year old daughter ‘U’- whom the tragic travails of time and the cold constraints of the law compel us to consign to anonymity – playing with her siblings in the park. After a

while, ‘U’ felt thirsty. A water cooler, located on the ground floor of the nearby office building of the North Delhi Power Ltd. (NDPL), used to serve as the oasis for the thirsty children of the locality; ergo, she proceeded towards it, to quench her thirst.

3. She was never seen, alive, thereafter.

4. PW-21 Sunita returned at 4 PM, but found ‘U’ missing from the park. On asking her younger daughter, she was informed that ‘U’ had, some time back, proceeded towards the NDPL office, to quench her thirst, and had not returned. Sunita informed her husband Shyam Paswan; both husband and wife searched, for hours, for their missing daughter, but fruitlessly. Resultantly, a complaint was lodged by Shyam Paswan, the next day, i.e. on 12th July, 2011, at the Maurya Enclave Police Station, which was registered under Section 363 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (‘the IPC’).

5. Efforts at trying to locate the whereabouts of ‘U’ continued, both on the part of her parents as well as the Police authorities, but without success; until, towards the evening of 13th July, 2011, persons working in the NDPL Office noticed a foul smell pervading the premises. Attempts to trace the source of the smell resulted in the tragic discovery, at around 6 PM, of the decomposed and putrefying corpse of ‘U’, sandwiched between the iron grate and the wall in the electric switch gear room on the ground floor. She was naked, except for a baby underwear which, too, was pulled down to the knees. A glance at the dead body revealed that her genitals were bloated, and that she had first been brutally raped and, thereafter, clobbered, on the head, with a solid metal instrument, resulting in her skull being shattered into small pieces.

6. The post-mortem of ‘U’ which followed, revealed multiple injuries, fractures and wounds, including missing skin and bone on the forehead, lacerations on the face, neck and chest, contusions on the arm and multiple hymeneal tears. The cause of death of ‘U’ was opined as being craniocerebral damage, caused by ‘blunt force trauma’. It was opined that the three injuries, on the head and forehead of ‘U’ were, individually as well as collectively, sufficient to cause death, in the ordinary course of nature. The missing bone on the forehead was attributed to the skull being shattered into multiple pieces, by the blunt force applied to it.

7. Investigations seemed to be heading nowhere when on 14th July, 2011, an 11-year old boy, Saroj, presented himself at the Police Station, claiming to have seen the appellant, on 11th July, 2011, in the company of ‘U’ and, a short while thereafter, on hearing her screaming, having again seen the appellant with her. Acting on the said lead, the Police apprehended, and arrested, the appellant. In his disclosure statement, the appellant disclosed having concealed the rod, with which he had smashed the head of ‘U’, as well as the clothes which he had been wearing at the time, below the staircase in the NDPL Office, from where he proceeded to retrieve the said items.

8. Forensic and DNA examination, of the various samples related to the appellant and ‘U’, indicated the presence of blood on the baby frock, baby underwear and hair, belonging to ‘U’, as well as the rod retrieved by the appellant from below the stairs in the NDPL office and sus