The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned the death sentence given to a man convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a minor boy in Gujarat’s Bharuch district in April 2016. The court instead ordered him to serve 25 years of imprisonment without the possibility of remission.
According to a bench consisting of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan, “the appellant Sambhubhai Raisangbhai Padhiyar’s crime was clearly diabolic in character.” However, it considered the mitigating circumstances in order to lift the death penalty.
The justices noted that the convict had tempted the child with ice cream before viciously sodomising and killing him. The child was also brutally strangled by him. It further said that the post-mortem results unequivocally showed that asphyxia by throttling was the cause of death.
Addressing the mitigating matter, the court observed that the appellant was 24 years old at the time of the incident and had no prior criminal record. He comes from a low socio-economic background, as indicated by the Mitigation Investigation Report.
The report also mentions that experts have diagnosed the appellant with moderate psychotic features and intellectual disability and that he contracted Tuberculosis Meningitis (TBM) in his early childhood.
According to the report, the appellant maintains ties with his 64-year-old mother, who looks after his 10-year-old daughter, while his wife has abandoned him.
The court directed that the superintendent of Vadodara Central Jail provide a report on his behaviour and conduct as well as a report on his mental health.
The Vadodara Jail Superintendent’s report shows that the appellant’s demeanour while imprisoned is very normal and that he behaves well there.
The appellant does not currently have any mental issues, according to the Hospital for Mental Health report. The report does show that the appellant felt regret. The appellant has argued that there are reliability issues with the projective test that the Hospital for Mental Health used.
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