Ranchi
The Jharkhand High Court has commuted the death sentence awarded by a lower court to life imprisonment in the case involving the killing of the then Pakur SP Amarjit Balihar and six police personnel in 2013.
Delivering the judgment, the bench of Justice Gautam Kumar Choudhary observed that it was not possible to sustain the death penalty when two judges of the earlier division bench had expressed conflicting views on the matter, even though the crime itself was extremely grave.
The lower court in Dumka had earlier awarded the death sentence to two Maoists—Sukhlal alias Praveer Murmu and Sanatan Baskey alias Tala Da—for murdering the former SP. Before this, Justice R. Mukhopadhyay of the High Court’s division bench had favoured acquitting the appellants by giving them the benefit of doubt, whereas Justice Sanjay Prasad held them guilty and upheld the death penalty. This divergence of opinion created a judicial deadlock, after which the case was referred to Justice Gautam Kumar Choudhary.
While affirming the conviction, Justice Choudhary’s court held that the eyewitness testimonies of the injured members of the police escort team clearly proved the appellants’ involvement in the attack. The court further noted that the ambush was part of a well-planned conspiracy and amounted to a serious attempt to challenge the State’s law and order machinery.
It held that when armed groups try to undermine the sovereign authority of the state, it poses a grave threat to the rule of law and such attacks are not just against the police force but against the state’s sovereign power itself.
On reducing the sentence, the court observed that although the crime was extremely serious and no mitigating circumstances were found, the clear judicial disagreement between two judges on the issue of sentencing was in itself sufficient ground to commute the death penalty. The judgment also referenced several past court rulings in this context.
What The Case Was About?
In 2013, then Pakur SP Amarjit Balihar had travelled to Dumka to attend a meeting related to the upcoming elections. While returning, Maoists attacked the police convoy, killing SP Balihar and six other police personnel. The convicts had challenged the death sentence granted by the Dumka court before the High Court, arguing that the judgment was not legally sound and that they were awarded capital punishment without adequate and conclusive evidence. Both convicts had also sought their release through their appeals.
