JUDGMENT :

JAI KRISHNA UPADHYAY, J.

1. Heard Sri Saghir Ahmad, learned Senior Counsel, who has been appointed as Amicus Curiae. He was assisted very ably by Ms. Gunjan Sharma and Sri Rajarshi Gupta, learned counsel for the appellants in Capital Cases No. 14 of 2025. Ms. Babita Upadhyay, learned counsel for the appellant was heard in Jail Appeal No. 317 of 2025. Sri Amit Sinha, learned Additional Government Advocate was heard for the State.

2. The instant Capital Case has been preferred against the judgment and order dated 05/10.07.2025 passed by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, Room No.3, Auraiya, convicting the appellants, Priyanka and Ashish @ Daini, under Sections 302 read with section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as "I.P.C.") and sentencing them for life imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 1,00,000/- each. In default of payment of fine, they had to undergo 2 years additional rigorous imprisonment. The accused Priyanka was further sentenced to death for the offence under Section 302 of I.P.C. with a fine of Rs. 1,00,000/- and the accused Priyanka was ordered to be hanged by the neck till she was dead. In default of payment of fine, she had to undergo 2 years additional imprisonment.

3. On 27.06.2024 at 05:00 AM, three children had died. Madhav @ Gunga was 6 years of age, Aditya @ Tilla was 5 years of age and Mangal was 4 years of age. The information with regard to their death was conveyed to the police by the Gram Pradhan, Jitendra Bhushan son of Ram Pal, Village Talepur, Thana Kotwali, Auraiya. This reaching of the information by the Gram Pradhan was recorded by the G.D. No. 36 of Thana Kotwali. The G.D. entry was made at 13:44 hours and the date was 27.06.2024. This had put the police into motion despite the fact that the information given by Gram Pradhan, Jitendra Bhushan was not considered as an F.I.R. and was not lodged as such. Consequent to the application given by the Pradhan, Jitendra Bhushan, the police had gone to the site i.e. the spot where the alleged incident had occurred, the bridge of Sengur River. From there the dead- bodies of the three children, namely, Madhav @ Gunga, Aditya @ Tilla and Mangal were recovered. The panchayatnamas of the dead-bodies were conducted on the bank of the Sengur River itself. The panchayatnama had commenced at 13:41 hours and had come to an end at 14:25 hours. In the panchayatnama, there was no mention of any case crime number. The first panchayatnama was of Aditya @ Tilla which was exhibited as Exhibit Ka-4, the second was of Madhav @ Gunga and was exhibited as Exhibit Ka-9 and the third was of Mangal which was exhibited as Exhibit Ka-14. All the panchayatnamas had virtually commenced at the same time and had came to end also virtually at the same time. The common factors in all the panchayatnamas was that they did not carry any case crime number and the witnesses of the panchayatnamas were though different but were not the family members. In the panchayatnama of Aditya @ Tilla, the witnesses of the panchayatnama were Shashank son of Satyendra Singh, Ashit Kumar son of Rajveer Singh, Rajveer son of Subhash Chandra, Ramchandra son of Mahadev Prasad and Ramesh son of Bhoop Singh. In the panchayatnama of Madhav @ Gunga, the witnesses were Brij Mohan son of Brihman Singh, Shivraj son of Raj Narayan, Jaydev son of Rajaram, Jitendra Bhushan son of Ram Pal (Pradhan) and Vinod Kumar son of Baladeen. In the panchayatnama of Mangal, the witnesses were Manjesh Pandey son of Vinod Kumar, Shravan Lal son of Sukhbasi Lal, Narendra Mishra son of Ram Lakahan, Beche Lal son of Sita Ram and Aditya Kumar son of Laik Singh. Thereafter, post the panchayatnama along with the report of Pradhan, Jitendra Bhushan, the dead-bodies were sent for post-mortem and the post- mortem was conducted on 27.06.2024 itself and the post-mortem reports were exhibited as Exhibit Ka-9A, Exhibit Ka-10A and Exhibit Ka-11A. None of the post-mortem reports contained any mention of the case cr