The court ruled that the death penalty should only be imposed in rarest of rare cases and emphasized balancing mitigating circumstances against the nature of the crime.

1. Accused / appellant Shyamlal was tried by learned Sessions Judge, Jagdalpur, in Sessions Trial No. 38/2006 for committing the murders of his father Raghu Singh, mother Sapdai and sister Suvidha in the intervening night of 22nd / 23rd September, 2005. After conclusion of the trial, learned Sessions Judge convicted the accused / appellant for each murder separately under S.302 of the IPC and sentenced him with extreme penalty of death sentence.

2. Learned Sessions Judge has submitted the proceedings for confirmation of death sentence under S.366 of the CrPC and the same has been registered in this Court as Death Reference No. 1/2006. At the same time, accused Shyamlal has also preferred an appeal under S.374(2) of the CrPC, through the Superintendent, Central Jail, Jagdalpur, questioning the legality and correctness of the judgment of conviction and order of sentence. Same has been registered as Criminal Appeal No. 626/2006. Therefore, the criminal appeal as well as death reference are being disposed of by this common judgment.

3. We have heard Dr. N. K. Shukla, learned Sr. Advocate with Ku. Reetu Mishra, counsel for the accused / appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 626/2006 and Mr. G. D. Vaswani, learned Additional Public Prosecutor with Shri Akhil Mishra, Panel Lawyer for the State.

4. The case of the prosecution, in brief, was that in the intervening night of 22nd / 23rd September, 2005 after taking their meals, deceased Raghu Singh, his wife Sapdai, daughter Suvidha and the accused, who is also son of Raghu Singh, were sleeping at one place, whereas PW / 2 Sanmati, who is the wife of accused along with her children was sleeping in the same house at other place. At about 12.00 in the mid night Sanmati heard the sound on which she woke up, as the door of the house was closed, she peeped through a hole where her inlaws and accused were sleeping and saw that her husband i.e. present accused / appellant Shyamlal was attacking his father, mother and sister with a pestle. When she raised screams, accused ran after her, somehow she escaped and reached the adjacent house of Hirajan and Thadguram. She informed them that her husband was attacking her father inlaw, mother inlaw and sister inlaw with a pestle. On hearing this, they immediately came to the house of accused and saw that accused was standing in front of the house holding pestle in his hand. Pestle was snatched by PW 3 Hirajan. The accused made extra judicial confession before Hirajan that he has murdered his father, mother and sister and thereafter accused ran away. They immediately informed the villagers, even village Kotwar Azan Das and Doctor were also called and they found that Raghu Singh and Ku. Suvidha were already dead, however, Sapdai was breathing, therefore, some treatment was given to her. In the morning, she was taken to the Primary Health Centre, Makdi where she breathe last. Merg intimations (Ex. P / 35, P / 36 and P / 37) regarding death of Raghu Singh, Ku. Suvidha and Smt. Sapdai were given by Thadguram to Police Out post Makdi and in turn merg intimations were given to Police Station, Kondagaon where First Information Report (Ex. P / 34) was registered by PW / 11 Shri A. K. Dewangan, Station House Officer, Police Station, Kondagaon, who after giving notices (Ex. P / 1 and P / 2) to the Panchas, prepared the inquest report (Ex. P / 4) of the body of Raghu Singh and of the body of Ku. Suvidha Ex. P / 5. He seized the pestle under Ex. P / 3 on being produced by Hirajan and on the one corner of pestle there was iron loop. He also took into possession the plain soil and bloodstained soil from the places of occurrence where Raghu Singh, Suvidha and Sap