The Calcutta High Court reduced the death sentence of a convict in a fraud -related case and turned into imprisonment of up to 40 years without any exemption.
The guilty person was accused of cheating one lakh rupees from a woman by making a false promise to treat the daughter and killed both of them when it was revealed. A person named Sunil Das alias Gurudev took Rs 83,000 in the name of performing a yajna but could not fix the girl who was scorched in the fire.
In August 2023, the Rampurhat Sessions Court of Birbhum district found Das guilty of rape, murder and disappearance of evidence. The lower court on 17 May 2020 sentenced her to death sentence for killing two women, life imprisonment for raping a daughter and seven years rigorous imprisonment for disappearing evidence.
However, the High Court did not find him guilty in the rape case for which he was convicted by the lower court. A division bench of Justice Debangasu Basak and Justice Mohammad Shabbar Rashidi, in its judgment on 18 September, retained the death sentence of death and the death penalty to 40 years of life imprisonment without any exemption.
The court said that although it was a heinous crime, it did not fall into the rare category and the state government could not prove that there was no scope for improvement in the guilty. The court said, “We did not come to the conclusion that any punishment other than the death penalty would be insufficient.” The scope of such punishment has completely ended.