In a heart-wrenching case involving the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of a toddler in Kolkata, the Calcutta High Court grapples with the weight of circumstantial evidence and the limits of capital punishment. The central issue before the Court was whether the prosecution’s evidence conclusively established the nexus of the appellant to the heinous crime and if the death penalty imposed by the trial court was justified. Dive into this gripping judgment to explore how the Court balanced justice for a brutal crime with the principles governing life and death.
Brief Facts:
The case involves the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of a 2½-year-old girl in Kolkata on the night of July 20–21, 2013. The child, who was living with her grandmother under the Hastings flyover, went missing around midnight. Local residents reported seeing the accused, Suresh Paswan, behaving suspiciously in the area around that time. Although initially apprehended, he was released after denying any involvement. The next morning, the child’s body was discovered in a nearby drain with visible injuries and signs of sexual assault. Paswan, a temporary caretaker at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club stables, was later seen carrying a child matching the victim’s description. During the investigation, he led the police to the recovery of the victim’s clothes from a garbage dump. A railway ticket dated July 21, 2013, indicated his escape to Bihar, where he was eventually arrested. He was charged under Sections 364, 376A, and 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act). The trial court found him guilty and sentenced him to death, following which the matter was referred to the Calcutta High Court for confirmation and appeal.
Contentions of the Appellant:
The defence argued that the case rested solely on circumstantial evidence, which failed to form a complete and unbroken chain pointing only to the accused. Witnesses who claimed to have seen the accused with the victim were deemed unreliable due to poor visibility and their questionable approach to the police. The recovery of the victim’s clothes was suspicious, as no earlier report mentioned them being missing. Some witnesses were known to frequently testify for the police, affecting their credibility. Others, allegedly employed at the Turf Club, lacked proof of employment, casting doubt on their presence. Medical findings showed no injuries to the victim’s lower body, and forensic reports found no evidence of violence or sexual assault on her clothes. The alleged extrajudicial confession was inadmissible, and the investigation was criticized as superficial, with significant contradictions in witness statements.
Contentions of the Respondent:
The prosecution effectively established the appellant’s guilt through cogent and convincing evidence, including credible witness testimonies and recovered items, leaving no room for reasonable doubt. Given the heinous nature of the crime, the trial court’s decision to convict the appellant and impose the death penalty was fully justified.
Observation of the Court:
The Division Bench comprises Justice Debangsu Basa and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi observed, “Therefore, in view of such overwhelming evidence with regard to suspicious presence of the appellant at the date time and place of occurrence, recovery of the victim child as also the recovery of the wearing apparel of the victim as per the leading statement of the appellant, it is established that the appellant and appellant alone is responsible for committing rape upon the victim coupled with her murder. The circumstances, set forward by the prosecution, leave no space for any other hypothesis but of the guilt of the appellant alone.”
The Court noted, “it is quite evident that the victim girl died an unnatural death due to manual strangulation. The evidence so adduced also suggests the victim, being a child, was subjected to sexual assault before her death and in order to wipe out the evidence of crime, the victim girl was killed.”
Further, the Court found that the appellant’s suspicious presence near the crime scene, corroborated by PW4 and PW5, and his identification by PW6 and PW7 carrying a child matching the victim’s description, were pivotal. The recovery of the victim’s apparel, pursuant to the appellant’s statement under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, further linked him to the crime.
Regarding the death penalty, the Court applied principles from landmark Supreme Court cases, including Bachan Singh vs. State of Punjab (1980) and Machhi Singh vs. State of Punjab (1983), which require balancing aggravating and mitigating circumstances. The Court cited Ramesh A Naika vs. Registrar General, High Court of Karnataka (2025), noting, “If the circumstantial evidence is of an unimpeachable character in establishing the guilt of the accused and leads to an exceptional case or the evidence sufficiently convinces the judicial mind that the option of a sentence lesser than death penalty is foreclosed, the death penalty can be imposed.”
However, considering the appellant’s age (45 yrs.), lack of prior criminal history, mild mental disability, and socio-economic background marked by poverty, the Court found the case did not fall under the “rarest of rare” category. It observed, “As has been held by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in many cases that every murder is gruesome but does not justify death penalty. In any case, we are not in a position to return a finding that the offence involved in the case at hand falls under the category of ‘rarest of rare cases’ to justify the punishment of death.”
The decision of the Court:
In the light of the foregoing discussion, the High Court upheld the appellant’s conviction under Sections 364, 376A, and 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and Section 6 of the POCSO Act. However, the death sentence under Section 302 was commuted to life imprisonment without remission until 50 years from the date of arrest, considering the appellant’s age, socio-economic background, and lack of prior criminality. The sentences for the other offences were affirmed, with the period of detention already undergone set off against the substantive punishment under Section 428 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
Case Title: Suresh Paswan Vs.State of West Bengal
Case No.: C.R.A. 384 of 2019
Coram: Justice Debangsu Basa and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi
Advocate for Appellant: Sr. Adv. Kallol Mondal, Advocates Krishan Ray, Souvik Das, Anamitra Banerjee, Isita Kundu, and Akbar Laskar
Advocate for Respondent: P.P. Debasish Roy, Advocates Trina Mitra, and Antarikha Basu
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