Kathua rape & murder case: SC chastises Kathua CJM, HC over gang-rape, orders trial of key accused as adult
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday held Shubam Sangra, a key accused in the sensational gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old nomadic girl in Kathua in 2018, was not a minor at the time of the offence and ordered his trial as an adult, observing “a casual or cavalier approach” by courts in such cases cannot be permitted.
The top court gave credence to the medical board’s report which estimated the age of the accused above 19 years at the time of commission of the crime and set aside the order passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and the high court.
A bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and J B Pardiwala said though there was a “clear and unambiguous case” in favour of the accused person’s juvenility on the basis of his birth certificate and school records, he cannot take shelter under such documents when a heinous crime has been committed.
It also chastised the CJM and the high court over their “casual and cavalier” approach while deciding the accused was a juvenile when the crime was committed.
“…when an accused commits a heinous and grave crime like the one on hand and thereafter attempts to take the statutory shelter under the guise of being a minor, a casual or cavalier approach while recording as to whether an accused is a juvenile or not cannot be permitted as the courts are enjoined upon to perform their duties with the object of protecting the confidence of a common man in the institution entrusted with the administration of justice,” the court said.
Refusing to believe the birth certificate and school records which had established the juvenility of the accused, Justice Pardiwala, writing the 66-page judgement, said the medical reports cannot be brushed aside.
“It is held that the respondent accused was not a juvenile at the time of commission of the offence and should be tried the way other co-accused were tried in accordance with the law. Law to take its own course,” it said.
The judgement said the benefit of the principle of benevolent legislation attached to the Juvenile Justice Act would be extended to only such cases wherein the accused is held to be a juvenile on the basis of at least prima facie evidence inspiring confidence regarding his minority as the benefit of the possibilities of two views in regard to the age.
“The crime that the respondent accused herein has been charged with is heinous; its execution was vicious and cruel, by any stretch of imagination. The entire crime was calculated and ruthless. This case captured the attention and indignation of the society across the country, more particularly, in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, as a cruel crime that raised alarm regarding safety within the community,” it said.
The alleged accused is involved in “grave and serious offence” which was executed in a “well-planned manner” reflecting his maturity of mind, the court said.
It said, “The plea of juvenility is more in the nature of a shield to dodge or dupe the arms of law, and cannot be allowed to come to his rescue.”
The bench, however, clarified the guilt or innocence of the respondent accused shall be determined strictly on the basis of the evidence that may be led by the prosecution and the defence at the time of the trial. “All observations made in this judgment are meant only for the purpose of deciding the issue of juvenility,” it said.
The bench referred to a provision of the J and K Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and the rules for juvenility and said the medical evidence cannot be brushed aside.
“There is no good reason why we should overlook or ignore or doubt the credibility of the final opinion given by a team of five qualified doctors, one from the Department of Physiology, one from the Department of Anatomy, one from the Department of Oral Diagnosis, one from the Department of Forensic Medicine and one from the Department of Radio Diagnosis, all saying in one word that on the basis of the physical, dental and radiological examination, the approximate age of the respondent could be fixed between 19 and 23 years,” it said.
The minor girl was kidnapped on January 10, 2018 and was raped in captivity in a small village temple after keeping her sedated for four days. She was later bludgeoned to death.
The top court had on February 07, 2020 stayed the proceedings before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) against Sangra.
It had stayed the proceedings after the Jammu and Kashmir administration claimed the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had erroneously affirmed the order of a trial court holding him as juvenile at the time of the offence in 2018.
The union administration (UT) had said the medical board constituted by the high court by its order of February 21, 2018 had opined that the accused was aged between 19 and 23 years at the time of offence.
The JJB had in 2019 framed charges against the ‘minor’ and continued with the proceedings of examination of prosecution witnesses.
The top court had on May 07, 2018 transferred the trial of the case from Kathua in Jammu to Pathankot in Punjab and ordered day-to-day trial after some lawyers prevented the Crime Branch officials from filing a charge sheet in the sensational case.
The special court had on June 10, 2019 sentenced three men to life imprisonment till last breath for the ghastly crime that shook the nation.
Sanji Ram, the mastermind and caretaker of the ‘devasthanam’ (temple), where the crime took place in January, 2018; Deepak Khajuria, a Special Police Officer, and Parvesh Kumar, a civilian — the three main accused –were spared death penalty, a punishment sought by the prosecution during the year-long in-camera trial.
The three given life term were convicted under Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) sections relating to criminal conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, gang-rape, destruction of evidence, drugging the victim and common intention.
The other three accused — Sub Inspector Anand Dutta, Head Constable Tilak Raj and special police officer Surender Verma — were convicted of destruction of evidence to cover up the crime and handed down five years in jail and Rs 50,000 fine each. They are out on parole.
The trial court had acquitted the seventh accused Vishal Jangotra, son of Sanji Ram, giving him the benefit of doubt.
Application for birth certificate nailed ‘juvenile’ now declared adult
A shoddily drafted application for a birth certificate was the loose string that led to the unravelling of the conspiracy to proclaim one of those accused in the 2018 gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old in Kathua as a juvenile.
On Wednesday, that story, told multiple times over the last four years, ended with the Supreme Court ruling that the accused claiming to be a juvenile can be treated as an adult and a trial should be initiated against him.
The case of the young man in his early 20s, who can now be identified as Shubam Sangra, was being heard by the Juvenile Board in Kathua in Jammu. He was lodged in a juvenile home in Jammu and was expected to be released soon.
With Sangra being tried in the gang rape-murder, the quest for justice for the child who was smothered to death in captivity in January 2018 takes a decisive turn.
The inconsistencies in dates and false information in the application for a birth registration certificate filed by Sangra’s father on April 15, 2004 were crucial in nailing the lie.
According to the charge-sheet in the case filed by the Jammu and Kashmir Crime Branch, Sangra was instrumental in the abduction, gang-rape and killing of the child. Eight people, including Sangra, were accused in the case that shook the nation with its details of brutality.
The affidavit filed in the court cited the inconsistencies in the application to buttress its claim that Sangra was a juvenile. This was submitted in court along with medical reasons by the Crime Branch, which was contesting the trial court’s decision to treat Sangra as a minor.
The application at the Tehsildar’s office in HIranagar, Jammu, was filed by Sangra’s father who wanted birth registration certificates of his three children. The eldest, a boy, whose date of birth was stated to be November 23, 1997, a daughter said to be born on February 21, 1998, and Shubam Sangra on October 23, 2002, police said.
The difference in the birth days of the two elder children was just two months and 28 days, “which by any medical standard is impossible”, the affidavit states.
This, it says, indicates the father’s casual approach in furnishing the particulars of the dates of birth.
Moreover, no place of birth was mentioned for the older two, but Shubam Sangra was stated to be born in a Hiranagar hospital. A subsequent investigation to test the veracity of that statement did not bear that out, officials said.
A special investigation team sent a questionnaire to the Hiranagar Block Medical Officer (BMO) and asked for records of Sangra’s birth along with the particulars of the parents. The BMO verified the record and categorically stated that no delivery in the name of the Sangra’s mother had taken place on October 23, 2002, police said in the affidavit before the apex court.
“…in fact these entries were imaginary, and without any supporting birth record of either Municipal Committee or Primary Health Centre where the birth of the respondent (juvenile) is stated to have taken place,” it said.
The painstaking investigation, which resulted in the affidavit, was backed by a report of a board of medical experts that determined Sangra’s age as not less than 19 and not more than 23 on January 10, 2018 when the brutal assault took place.
The report by specialists from different departments, including a physiologist, dental examiner, radiologist and forensic scientist, based its conclusion on various clinical tests as well as Sangra’s physical appearance.
The Crime Branch charge-sheet detailed Sangra’s alleged involvement in the horrific crime. It said Sangra was responsible for an overdose of sedatives forcibly administered to the eight-year-old, rendering her “incapacitated” to resist sexual assault on her as well as her murder.
“She was forcefully administered five tablets of Clonazepam of 0.5 mg each on January 11, 2018 which is higher than the safe therapeutic dose. Subsequently more tablets were given…The signs and symptoms of an overdose may include drowsiness, confusion, impaired coordination, slow reflexes, slowed or stopped breathing, coma (loss of consciousness) and death,” a medical expert was quoted as saying.
The peak concentration of clonazepam is achieved in the blood after one hour to 90 minutes of oral administration and its absorption is complete, “irrespective of administered either with or without food”, according to the concluding opinion.
Doctors were of the opinion that tablets given to the child could have pushed her into a state of shock or coma.
The case was transferred out of Jammu and Kashmir and shifted to Pathankot on orders from the Supreme Court on May 07, 2018.
The special court on June 10, 2019 sentenced three men to life imprisonment “till last breath”. These were Sanji Ram, the mastermind and caretaker of the ‘devasthanam’ (temple) where the crime took place, special police officer Deepak Khajuria and a civilian called Parvesh Kumar.
Three other accused — Sub Inspector Anand Dutta, Head Constable Tilak Raj and special police officer Surender Verma — were convicted for destruction of evidence to cover up the crime and handed down five years in jail and Rs 50,000 fine each. They are out on parole.
The seventh accused, Vishal Jangotra, son of Sanji Ram, was acquitted.
Investigators feel vindicated
Crime Branch officials of Jammu and Kashmir Police on Wednesday said they felt vindicated after Supreme Court verdict which upheld their findings that main accused in the gang-rape and murder of eight-year-old girl in Kathua was not a juvenile.
The officers, some of whom have retired now, expressed happiness after their painstaking probe findings in the gruesome rape and murder of the nomadic girl in 2018 were upheld by the top court.
The apex court trashed the claims of accused Shubam Sangra that he was a juvenile at the time of crime, which limits maximum punishment to just three years, and held him to be an adult to face the trial.
The then Inspector General (crime branch) Ahfadul Mujtaba, who has retired, exclaimed with joy that the hard work of his team had finally yielded desired results.
“We have been saying from day-one that Shubam Sangra had used a juvenile card to escape the punishment. But never mind, the law has finally caught him,” Mujtaba said.
He refused to be drawn into politics in the case and said “as a police officer, I believe that justice has been done and now the main culprit will face the law and I am sure that he will be punished for the heinous crime that he committed”.
R K Jalla, the then Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) and chief investigator of the case, said, “It is finally victory of truth” and “I hope that trial against the accused will begin soon.”
Jalla, along with his team comprising Superintendent of Police (SP) Naveed and Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) Shwetambari Sharma, had faced a lot of criticism after the arrest of Sanji Ram, one of the main accused serving life sentence in Gurdaspur jail.
“All that has happened is over now and a lesson to people that one should never lose faith in the judicial process of the country. The fringe elements will try to create roadblocks but eventually, the law catches up with the criminal,” Jalla, who is leading a retired life, said.
Recalling the case, he said it was like looking for a needle in a haystack till an unusual sweat on Sanji Ram’s face on a chilly January morning hinted he was hiding something.
Sanji Ram, along with two others, were convicted for life in the case by a sessions court in Pathankot on Monday.
Retired from service in February 2019, Jalla was handed the case that was given to the Crime Branch on January 27, 2018.
“After having investigated the crime scene, we went to meet Sanji Ram (one of the accused in the case). As I and my team started enquiring about his family members, including his arrested juvenile nephew, I asked about his son Vishal Sangha.
“Sanji Ram immediately conveyed to me in a boastful voice that his son was studying in Meerut and I can go and check from his CDR (call detail record). I started wondering about two things — why is he insisting that I should go and check Vishal’s call records and second, why the hell is he sweating on a chilly morning of January,” Jalla, one of the most decorated Jammu and Kashmir Police officers, recalled.
Jalla’s only regret in the case was that Vishal had been released on benefit of doubt by the court but hoped that the new twist would soon catch on him also.
The case had assumed political dimensions with two former BJP leaders, Chowdhery Lal Singh and Ganga Singh, joining a protest march in March 2018 during which a demand for release of Sanji Ram and others was made.
The case saw straining of ties between PDP and BJP alliance government but as investigators in the case, Jalla said he “had received not a single call from any of the BJP leaders”.
“There was no political pressure whatsoever on me or my team and we were doing our job with complete dedication and honesty,” he added.
Jalla was part of the first batch of police officers that joined the Special Operations Group – an anti-militancy crack force formed in early 1990s.
The officer, with a smile, also added that this case made him revisit all that had been taught to him during training at the police academy.
Victim’s family hopeful of justice now
The family of the eight-year-old nomadic girl, who was raped and murdered in Kathua district in 2018, welcomed the Supreme Court judgement on Wednesday that one of the accused claiming to be a juvenile can be treated as an adult.
Mohammed Yusuf, who had adopted the minor, and Mohammed Akthar, her biological father, said the verdict generated a hope of complete justice.
“We welcome the judgement of the Supreme Court, and we are hopeful that we will finally get complete justice as Sangra is the main accused in the case,” Yusuf said.
“We did not get complete justice so far as some of the convicted persons are already out on bail over the past one year,” Akhtar said, referring to the release of former Sub-Inspector Anand Dutta and Head Constable Tilak Raj by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which suspended the rest of their sentences pending an appeal.
Yusuf said they were dejected by certain developments, including the release of the culprits on bail, but the latest verdict came as a major relief for them as “we feel the victim will get justice finally”.
