Supreme Court upholds death penalty for man who roasted alive 5 of family

Holding that the convict showed extreme depravity in committing the murder in a diabolic and grotesque manner, the Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for a man who burnt alive five members of his brother's family in Uttarakhand.

A bench of justices VS Sirpurkar and AK Patnaik said convict Sunder Singh deserved no leniency as the offence fell in the "rarest of rarest" crime which warranted imposition of death penalty for the crime which occurred 21 years ago.

The apex court said though the investigation and prosecution was done in a slipshod manner, the dying declaration of one of the victims and the statement of another deceased sufficiently established the guilt of Singh.

"It must be said that this is one of the rarest of the rare cases. Here is a case where the whole family is wiped out. Five persons have lost their life while the sixth person, a helpless lady, who has now been left to be the only member of the family, has to live her life with 70% burn injuries.

"The murder was committed in a cruel, grotesque and diabolical manner. When all the members of the family were having their food, the accused poured petrol in the room and set it on fire and went to the extent of closing the door also. He closed the door as established by Vimla Devi (PW-1) and Prem Singh in the dying declaration," justice Sirpurkar, writing the judgment, said.

In the incident that had taken place on June 30, 1989 at village Mahargheti, Patwari Circle Dangoli in district Bageshwar (which was part of district Almora at the time of the incident), Pratap Singh, his wife Nandi Devi, his elder son Balwant Singh (aged about 28 years), another son Prem Singh (aged about 19 years), daughter Kamla (aged about 16 years) lost their lives while wife of Balwant Singh, namely, Vimla Devi (PW-1) sustained grievous burn injuries.

Though Balwant Singh was in flames, he managed to come out of the room by opening the door. However, as soon as he came out of the room, the accused, who was still waiting there struck him with a sword on the neck because of which he fell down dead outside the house.

The sessions court awarded death sentence to Singh, who was arrested 12 years after the incident, and the high court confirmed the capital punishment following which he appealed in the apex court.

"This was the most foul act by which the accused actually intended to burn all the persons inside the room and precisely that had happened. Barring Vimla Devi (PW-1), everybody in that room was burnt with the exception of Balwant Singh, who somehow, was able to open the room and come out.

"Even he was not spared and almost beheaded by the accused. It was clear that the accused had done this with pre-meditated and cold-blooded mind as he had taken the trouble of carrying petrol to his own cousin's house," the apex court said.