New Delhi: In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court, put on hold the life sentence of a woman convicted of killing her fiancé with the help of her boyfriend and two others, observing that ‘mental rebellion and wild romanticism’ led to the catastrophic outcome.
The facts in this case bear stark resemblance to the alleged murder of Indore-based businessman Raja Raghuvanshi by his wife Sonam, during their honeymoon in Meghalaya.
In this case, dating back to December 3, 2003, B V Girish, a 26-year-old software engineer from Bengaluru, was murdered after a dinner outing with his fiancée Shubha Shankar, a 20-year-old law student.
Shubha and Girish got engaged on November 30, 2003 following an arrangement by their families, who were neighbours with cordial relations.
After dinner, the couple stopped at Air Viewpoint to watch airplanes land. While they were parked at the viewpoint, Girish was attacked and fatally struck on the head multiple times with a steel rod by an unknown assailant.
Shubha, with the help of bystanders, took Girish to the hospital, where he was declared dead the following morning.
Initially, a case was registered against unknown persons. However, investigations uncovered a conspiracy involving Shubha, her close friend Arun Verma, his cousin Dinesh, and their associate Venkatesh. It was the latter who was identified as the assailant.
It came to light that Shubha, who was in love with Arun and against the match with Girish, conspired with the three, orchestrating and executing the crime. All four were arrested in January 2004, tried and convicted for murder and criminal controversy. The Karnataka High Court upheld their convictions, following which they moved appeals in the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court undertook a “studied scrutiny of the charges, along with the evidence placed on record”.
The call data records (CDRs) of the accused persons played a crucial role in their conviction. The Supreme Court, on close scrutiny of the evidence found the CDRs to be ‘astounding’, revealing an extensive and unusual pattern of communications among the accused.
Calls and SMSes between October and December 2003 were analysed, and the top court noted spikes in communication frequency, particularly between Shubha and Arun, often at ‘odd hours of the night’, even while Shubha was engaged to the deceased and present at her engagement ceremony.
On the basis of the call records, the Court noted the active entry of Arun’s cousin into the conspiracy on November 25, 2003, by making multiple direct calls to Shubha, who was then a complete stranger to him.
The Court also took note of the “dramatic rise” in communication between Arun and Shubha, with 56 exchanges on the day before the murder.
On the day of the incident, there were 54 communications between Arun and Shubha, primarily through SMSes, exchanged continuously while Shubha was with the deceased. This, the court said, supported the prosecution’s theory that Shubha was providing Arun real-time updates on their whereabouts.
Despite the towering evidence, the Supreme Court took the path of reformative justice.
“This unfortunate event would not have occurred, had the family been more sympathetic in understanding the mental predilection and disposition of Shubha,” the bench stated in its judgment.
The court recognised that the line between perpetrator and victim can blur when societal pressures push the vulnerable toward desperate, sometimes even disastrous, choices.
“A mere punishment per se would not constitute a remedy for an act of crime. It might change the offender’s legal or social status, but would not be sufficient to address the root cause of her/his actions or remove the psychological and emotional factors that made her/him commit the crime. The idea is to reform and rehabilitate the convict to bring him back into the fold of society,” the bench observed.
The court referred to the Constitution and stated: “The Constitution of India, 1950… the supreme law of the land, encourages the reformation of individuals, by granting them a new lease of life. This is personified by Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution which empowers the constitutional authorities to grant pardon to convicts.”
“We do not wish to end our judgment by merely rendering a conviction. We do believe that this Court has a little more role to play,” the Court held.
The court observed that Shubha was unable to make a decision for herself, despite being an adult woman. While clearly refusing to condone her actions and upholding her conviction, it said that Shubha was made to commit this offence by adopting the wrong course of action in order to address her problem.
“The appellants, who committed the offence with adrenaline pumping in their veins, have now reached middle age,” the bench said.
“They were not born as criminals, but it was an error of judgment through a dangerous adventure which led to the commission of a heinous crime,” it added.
The Supreme Court said it is important to facilitate the accused persons’ right to seek pardon by permitting them to approach the Karnataka Governor and suspended their arrest and life sentences for 8 weeks to grant them time to file their petitions before the Governor of Karnataka.
