NEW DELH, 31 October 2006 — The Delhi High Court yesterday sentenced a man to death for raping and murdering a fellow student a decade ago in a case that was reopened after a vigorous campaign by civil society groups and the media.
Saying that he deserves nothing but the capital punishment, the court sentenced Santosh Kumar Singh to death for rape and murder of law student Priyadarshini Mattoo. “He (Singh) shall be hanged till death,” said Justices R.S. Sodhi and P.K. Bhasin.
Mattoo was raped and killed at her Vasant Kunj flat by Santosh Kumar, her senior in law faculty of Delhi University, on Jan. 23, 1996. As Santosh Kumar had stalked her for around two years, Mattoo had lodged complaints against him at two different police stations.
A lower court acquitted Santosh Kumar in 1999 as sessions judge G.P. Thareja ruled that there was lack of evidence against him. The Delhi High Court yesterday described that judgment as “perverse.”
While the high court convicted Santosh Kumar on Oct. 17, the sentence was pronounced yesterday after a three-hour sentence hearing.
“We are of the opinion that a case of this kind in which the crime is committed in a pre-meditated approach and grotesque manner, the convict deserves nothing but the death penalty,” the bench observed. Santosh Kumar had been given many chances to reform by the police as Priyadarshini had complained that he was stalking her. However, he did not mend his ways and eventually raped and killed her, the court said.
“Keeping this in mind, we can say that he is a threat to society and, therefore, deserves the harshest punishment,” the bench said.
Taking strong exception to his earlier acquittal by the lower court, the bench said: “The trial court, however, quite amazingly after holding almost all crucial circumstances in favor of the prosecution, has ordered unmerited acquittal of the respondent (Santosh Kumar) by taking a perverse approach in the matter.
“Despite being convinced that there was no lacuna in the prosecution case (at least for murder), the trial court has mauled justice. Its decision has shocked the judicial conscience of this court,” the bench said.
Additional Solicitor General Amrendra Sharan, appearing for the prosecution, submitted before the bench that this case fell under the category of the “rarest of rare” cases because after assessing all circumstances, the offense committed by Santosh Kumar was “diabolical, gruesome and brutal.”
Santosh Kumar’s counsel R.K. Naseem pleaded for leniency as the conduct of his client since the incident till conviction had been clean.
“Even while in jail for three and a half years, his good conduct has been appreciated by jail authorities,” he argued. Besides, the counsel said, as Santosh Kumar was married with a two-year-old daughter and a mentally challenged elder brother, a lenient view should be taken while passing the sentence on him.
Santosh Kumar is the son of a retired police official who held an important position in the Indian capital at the time of the crime.
The prosecution appealed against the lower court verdict in the Delhi High Court in 2000 and the case was reopened in July this year after candle-light vigils, a mobile text message campaign by civil action groups and intense coverage and debate on television channels and the print media.
