Rape Of Daughter And Murder Of New Born Child Of It : MP HC Commutes Death Penalty To Life Imprisonment [Read Judgment]

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment of a man convicted for raping his daughter and killing the new born baby girl that was aborted by giving medicine.

The court ordered the convict “must serve a minimum of 30 years in the jail without remission, before consideration of his case for premature release”.

The prosecution story goes the convict and his daughter was staying alone in the house as his wife died long back.

The convict raped his daughter aged 17 years and when the pregnancy was in advance stage he gave some medicine to her and she delivered a baby girl.

The prosecutrix abandoned the new born baby girl in the pond nearby to his house with motive to hide the delivery of the child.

The convict took the prosecutrix to Zind, Haryana where her brother stayed and came back to the village.

The prosecutrix informed her brother about the incident and both returned back to the village and went to the police station Gadi Malhara in district Chattarpur where she narrated the story and the case was registered against her father.

In meantime on 28.2.2016 a dead body of a newly born baby girl was found in a pond in the village which the police taken up the investigation.

The trial court awarded death sentence to the convict for killing the new born and rigorous life term for raping his daughter.

A division bench of Justice SK Gangele and Justice Anurag Shrivastava said “the act of the accused / appellant could not be termed as the gravest of the grave cases. Hence, the trial Court has committed an error of law in awarding death sentence to the accused/appellant”.

In the court’s opinion “the proper sentence, which may be awarded to the accused/appellant is life imprisonment”.

The court upheld his conviction and modified the death sentence to life imprisonment for offence punishable under section 302 of IPC and affirmed the conviction for commission of rape.

Read the Judgment here.