Monday, the Delhi High Court commuted the death sentence in Jeevak Nagpal v. The State, a case in which a man was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old child in 2009.
Justices Mukta Gupta and Anish Dayal of the division bench overturned the death sentence imposed by the trial court.
The judge ruled that Jeevak Nagpal would spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole until he was 20 years old.
The death sentence was commuted by the court on the grounds that it was not one of the “rarest of rare cases.” The Court concluded that the convict’s reformation was still possible in this instance.
“It is not a case in which the appellant cannot be reformed, and as a result, this Court is of the considered opinion that a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the first 20 years would be appropriate. The Court ordered that the appellant’s sentence be reduced to “rigorous imprisonment for life with no remission till 20 years and to pay a fine of 1 lakh, in default of which, to undergo simple imprisonment for six months for offence punishable under Section 302 IPC.”
A reference requesting confirmation of Nagpal’s death sentence from a trial court was before the High Court. It was also deciding on the convict’s appeal, which challenged his conviction and sentence.
Nagpal was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering his neighbor, who was 12 years old. According to reports, Nagpal abducted the child on March 18, 2009, after sending messages to the child’s father requesting a ransom.
He told the Court that he eventually killed the child by smothering and using the jack handle on his car. The child’s body was then dumped into a clean drain. When Nagpal was killed, he was barely 21 years old.
The Court rejected Nagpal’s appeal of his conviction after considering the case.
The Court stated, when deciding on the reference, that the evidence would suggest that Nagpal’s murder was not preplanned because he was not armed.
According to the judgment, “Though causing death of someone in itself is perversity, but causing death by smothering and inflicting injuries by jack handle, though opined to be consistent with intense torture, cannot be held to be a diabolic or seriously perverse manner of committing murder so as to shock the collective conscience of the society and fall in the category of rarest of rare cases.” Although causing death by smothering and inflicting injuries by jack
As a result, the sentence that Nagpal was given for the crime of murder was changed by the court. However, it stated that the sentences imposed for violations of Sections 364A, 201, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code will not be altered.
For Jeevak Nagpal, lawyers Bharat Dubey, Shubhlaxmi Dubey, Sonia Dubey, and Tanya Kapoor appeared.
Prithu Garg, an additional public prosecutor (APP), testified on behalf of the state.
The complainant was represented by Prashant Diwan, Kushika Chachhra, and Mayank Verma.
Tushar Sannu, the Standing Counsel for the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS), represented the institute.
Name -Sandeep K. Pareek, BALLB(2nd sem.), RNB Global University
