LAW FOR ALL

awarded death sentence by the trial court after having found them guilty under Sections 395, 396 and 397 of Indian Penal Code (for short ‘IPC’). They were sentenced to death by hanging under subsection 5 of Section 354 of Criminal Procedure Code for offences committed under Section 396 IPC. = We are unhappy in the manner in which Sessions Court has awarded death sentence in the instant case. Learned judge lost sight of the fact that the Criminal Jurisprudence of this country or our society does not recognize those types of barbaric sentences.We are also not concerned with the question whether the criminals have come from 20 km away or 2000 km away. Learned judge says that they have come to “our state”, forgetting the fact that there is nothing like ‘our state’ or ‘your state’. Such parochial attitude shall not influence or sway a judicial mind. Learned judge has further stated, since the accused persons had come from a far away state, about 2000 km to “our state” for committing robbery and murder, death sentence would be imposed on them. Learned judge has adopted a very strange reasoning, needs fine tuning and proper training.. PW 5 in his examination-in- chief had stated that the accused had attacked him with a similar rod that was being shown to him which would indicate that the witness could not conclusively connect the rod which was used for committing the crime.-what is admissible under Section 27 of the Act is the information leading to discovery and not any opinion formed on it by the prosecution.” In this case, the prosecution could not prove that the rod recovered has any nexus with the crime alleged to have been committed by A-2. We are of the view that the prosecution, therefore, could not establish the guilt of the second accused beyond reasonable doubt. The High Court, therefore, committed a gross error in awarding life sentence to A2. - Consequently, the appeal stands allowed, the judgment of conviction and order of sentence are set aside and the appellant is directed to be set at liberty forthwith unless he is required to be detained in any other case.