TNN 
 
New Delhi, Sep 6: Disturbed by the recent spate in rape-cum-murders of minors and determined to set a deterrent example, the Supreme Court on Friday awarded death penalty on a teacher, himself a father of three, for raping and murdering a 5th standard girl. Ironically, the verdict came on Teachers’ Day.

Absence of an eye-witness or direct evidence of the depraved act of the teacher did not deter a bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and Mukundakam Sharma from sending him to the gallows, as it had no doubt about his guilt on a reading of the circumstantial evidence in the case supported by the ‘last seen with’ theory.

On Makar Sankranti, January 14, 2002, Shivaji aka Dadya Shankar Alhat, who was serving as a teacher in Pune, lured a maid’s daughter to a nearby hill on the pretext of collecting firewood for her. That was the last her sisters saw of the little girl. Her body was found lying on Manmodaya hill. Medical examination revealed rape, assault on her abdomen with a sharp-edged weapon and marks of strangulation with a rope on the neck.

The accused, who fled his residence, was arrested two days after the incident from a nearby sugarcane field. He was charge-sheeted. The trial court found the evidence cogent and imposed death penalty. The Bombay High Court confirmed the sentence.

Shocked by the depravity of the teacher, the bench rejected the convict’s plea for leniency in sentence and said “undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system” that would undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law.

“Proportion between crime and punishment is a goal respected in principle, and in spite of errant notions, it remains a strong influence in the determination of sentences,” said Justice Pasayat, writing the judgment for the bench.

Imposition of sentence without considering its effect on the social order in many cases may be in reality a futile exercise, the Bench said, adding heinous crimes, especially crime against women, require the courts to impose exemplary punishment.
“The court must not only keep in view the rights of the criminal but also the rights of the victim of the crime and the society at large while considering the imposition of appropriate punishment,” it said.

Rejecting the plea of the accused that there was no direct evidence to link him to the rape-cum-murder, the Bench said in most of these cases, there was seldom an eye-witness as these were not committed in public view. But that did not vitiate the circumstantial and medical evidence clearly establishing the guilt of the accused, it added.

“The case at hand falls in the rarest of rare category. The circumstantial evidence established the depraved acts of the accused and they call for only one sentence, that is death sentence,” the bench said.