Tricity
Hoshiarpur Pocso court sentences UP native to death for 5-year-old’s murder; crime ruled ‘rarest of rare’
A Hoshiarpur Pocso court has sentenced a Uttar Pradesh native to death for the September 2023 murder of a five-year-old child. The court classified the offence as falling into the rarest of rare category, delivering the conviction a day before the statutory trial deadline under the Pocso Act.
A special Pocso court in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, has sentenced a Uttar Pradesh native to death for the murder of a five-year-old child. The court ruled that the offence fell into the rarest of rare category, the threshold under Indian criminal law that permits capital punishment.
The conviction was delivered a day before the statutory trial deadline prescribed under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, 2012. The crime itself dates back to September 2023.
Rarest of rare finding
The “rarest of rare” doctrine was laid down by the Supreme Court in its 1980 Bachan Singh judgment, which set the constitutional standard for imposing the death penalty. Under the framework, courts must be satisfied that the crime is so exceptional that no sentence other than death is justified, and that there are no mitigating circumstances warranting life imprisonment instead.
In Pocso cases, special courts are required to complete trials within a fixed statutory window. Convictions recorded close to the deadline have drawn attention in the past for testing the system’s procedural rigour, particularly in cases involving grave offences against children.
Confirmation stage ahead
A death sentence imposed by a sessions court in India does not take immediate effect. Under Section 366 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the matter must be referred to the High Court for confirmation. In this case, that would mean the Punjab and Haryana High Court reviewing the trial court’s order.
The available public record did not include the names of the victim or the convict, or the precise circumstances that led to the September 2023 crime. Such details are generally disclosed in the formal court order.
The case is likely to be examined closely in legal and civic circles given both the severity of the sentence and the procedural significance of a conviction delivered on the eve of the statutory deadline.
Source: Hindustan Times
