25 years after murder, Supreme Court says killer was a child at time of crime

In a sensational twist to a crime that shook Pune in 1994, a man convicted of killing six persons has been declared a juvenile at the time of the crime.

Narayan Chetanram Chaudhary has been on death row for 21 years for the murders, which included two children and a pregnant woman.

His age was recorded as 20 to 22 years by the courts during his trial in a Pune court in 1998, when Bombay High Court decided an appeal in 1999 and when Supreme Court heard the case in 2000 Chaudhary never raised the defence that he was merely 12 years old when the crime was committed.

He told the Supreme Court, in a review petition, that he could not be sent to the gallows since he was a juvenile.

A juvenile convict cannot be kept in a normal prison and the entire trial stands vitiated (legally impaired). Under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, (s)he has to be tried by a Juvenile Board and can be sentenced to a maximum of two years stay in a correction home.

In January, the apex court directed Pune's Principal District and Sessions Judge to probe Chaudhary's age, and it submitted its findings, in a sealed cover. The Vacation Bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna opened it on Thursday, to find his claims to be accurate.

Chaudhary had approached the court for a week's parole on account of his father's demise, and the bench granted it to him, and ordered immediate listing of his review plea in July.

Chaudhary and his accomplice Jeetendra Nainsingh Gehlot had filed mercy petitions to the President. Gehlot's death sentence was commuted to life in October 2016, while Narayan withdrew his plea and instead moved a review petition on grounds of being a juvenile.

On August 26, 1994, Narayan Gehlot and their accomplice planned a burglary at the Rathi home in Kothrud, Pune. Narayan had sought employment with the Rathis as a servant but was denied employment. The trio planned to rob the home when the women and children were home alone.

They struck in the afternoon, armed with knives, and hacked four women and two children aged 2.5 and 1.5 years. They bundled up cash, jewellery and other valuables and fled to Rajasthan, from where Narayan was arrested in September 1994. One accomplice turned approver and said Chaudhary had orchestrated the bloodbath.

In its September 2000 judgment, the top court compared the trio to "a mad animal on prowl having tasted blood, which had gone amuck." Although SC dismissed Chaudhary's review petition in 2000, it was listed in open court after 2014's landmark SC decision that directed a review of all death row judgments to be heard in open court by a three-judge bench.

1994: THE RATHI MURDERS IN PUNE

• Narayan Chaudhary, Jeetendra Gehlot and an accomplice broke into the Rathi residence and killed four women and two children 
   
• They decamped with cash, jewellery and valuables to Rajasthan, from where Chaudhary was were arrested. One of the trio turned approver and said Chaudhary orchestrated the crime
   
• In the earlier hearings of the case — 1998, 1999 and 2000 — Chaudhary never raised the defence that he was only 12; his age was recorded as 22-23