VI. ARGUMENTS IN SUPREME COURT
After Santosh Kumar Singh was awarded ‘Death Penalty in the High Court appeal was made before the supreme court.
DEFENCE:
Mr.Sushil Kumar the lawyer for the accused presented his arguments that-
• Murder can be said to be committed only if commission of rape is proved.
• The observation of the H.C that DNA test proved the involvement of the appellant in rape was not tenable as he argued that vaginal swabs and slides and blood samples had been tampered.
• The vaginal swabs were collected and handed over to the CBI on 25th January 1996 but were deposited in Malkhana on 29th January 1996 i.e., after four days.
• As per the request of CBI two samples of blood 10ml each were taken and transferred to four vials 5ml…show more content… The accused admitted that he was harassing the deceased and gave an undertaking at the police station that he would not do so in the future but, still continued doing it .So, a personal security officer was provided to the deceased which shows the gravity of the issue and the level of harassment faced by the deceased.
• Before the murder he was seen outside the flat of the accused with a helmet in his hand (Mr.Kuppuswami was the evidence) and it was said that the helmet had a visor. Later during the investigation of the place, helmet was besmeared with specs of blood and the broken pieces of the visor were found near the body of the deceased through which it could be said that it had been used to inflict violence on the victim.
• He contended that, through the DNA test conducted by the CCMB on the vaginal swabs and slides and underwear of the deceased and the blood sample of the appellant it is clear that rape had been committed by the accused. In the trial court stage also the “DNA fingerprinting test “conclusively proved the…show more content… It opined that there is substantive evidence with regard to commission of murder as it has been proved that, the deceased suffered 19 injuries and 3 broken rib cages which would cause death of an individual under ordinary circumstances .Moreover, it is stated that the circumstantial evidences and the medical reports proved that, death had been caused by “Asphyxia”.
Court disregarded the judgment of trial court that DNA test could not prove the rape ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ and complied with the High Court’s decision that DNA tests of vaginal swabs of the deceased and blood of the accused explicitly (beyond reasonable doubt) proved that rape was committed by the accused.
Supreme Court thus, upheld the decision of High Court that Santosh Kumar Singh has committed rape as per S.302 and murder as per S.376 of IPC but, the court commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment taking into account, mitigating factors which include, High Court has reversed the judgment of acquittal of the Trial court only on the basis of circumstantial evidences and that the appellant was a young man at the time of the incident but after acquittal had got married and was the father of a girl