Convicted for killing wife, three children
The Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence awarded to a Ludhiana man convicted for killing his wife, two daughters and a son by setting them ablaze after pouring petrol on them in April 2003.
The crime had taken place in Mumbai’s Shere-Punjab colony, Andheri, where the convict, Ajitsingh Harnamsingh Gujral, had shifted after suffering business losses in Ludhiana.
A Bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and CK Prasad said a person like Gujral “who instead of doing his duty of protecting his family kills them in such a cruel and barbaric manner cannot be reformed or rehabilitated. The balance sheet is heavily against him and accordingly we uphold the death sentence awarded to him.”
Acknowledging that the killings were followed by a quarrel with his wife at midnight, the Bench, however, noted that the fact he had brought a large quantity of petrol into his house showed that he had pre-planned the “diabolical and gruesome murder in a dastardly manner.” The murders therefore fell under the “rarest of rare” category warranting death penalty, it asserted.
Gujral had committed the crime about 27 years after his marriage with Kanwaljeet Kaur. The other victims were his son, Amandeep Singh, aged 20, and the two daughters, Neeti and Taniya, aged 22 and 13. The apex court said it was legally bound to award death sentences in such cases despite the fact that the death penalty had been abolished in 96 countries and had not been used in 34 countries for a long period of time. “As long as death penalty exists in the statute book it has to be imposed in some cases, otherwise it will tantamount to repeal of the death penalty by the judiciary,” the Bench noted.
The SC also pointed out that its role was restricted to going into the question of imposing death penalties as it was “not dealing with mercy petitions under Article 72 and 161 of the Constitution.”
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