The Trial Court’s Use Of The Mahabharata To Impose The Death Penalty Is Disapproved Of By The Bombay High Court
Last Updated on November 16, 2024 by Arti Kumari
In a recent case involving many murders, the Bombay High Court questioned the “unwarranted” use of the Mahabharata and other “strange” grounds that supported a trial court’s decision to impose the death penalty.
The trial court was further criticized by the Division Bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and Abhay Mantri for giving the death penalty based only on murder statistics rather than giving the case’s particular facts top priority.
The High Court emphasized that every criminal trial is distinct and has its own features, necessitating a personalized evaluation.
The trial court’s justifications for imposing the death penalty are somewhat peculiar. We believe that the trial court’s quotation of a Mahabharata verse is unnecessary. More intriguingly, the trial court reprinted some crime statistics pertaining to the State of Maharashtra for the previous ten years in paragraph 344 of the ruling. Based on the aforementioned statistical data, it has been stated that committing four murders in one episode is uncommon and, as such, belongs to the rarest of rare cases. We believe that the aforementioned trial court method is incorrect since, based on certain statistical statistics, the category cannot be determined without going back to the case’s circumstances.The approach (of the trial court) is wholly erroneous,” the November 13 ruling said.
During the hearing of an appeal filed by a family, consisting of parents and their son, who were found guilty of killing four members of their maternal family due to a property dispute, the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court made these observations.
A long-standing disagreement over 29 acres of family agricultural land was at the center of the lawsuit. In May 2024, the Sessions Court found the accused, Haribhau Telgote (66), his wife Dwarkabai Telgote (55), and their son Shyam Telgote (35), guilty of the planned killings of Dhanraj Charhate, his sons Gaurav and Shubham, and his brother Baburao.
Cotton was planted on a disputed piece of property in June 2015 by Dwarkbai, who was involved in a land partition case against her siblings. A verbal confrontation broke out when Dhanraj objected. According to reports, Dwarkabai summoned her husband and sons, who showed there with lethal weapons. The ensuing assault claimed the lives of four family members.
The death penalty was applied by the Additional Sessions Judge, who classified the case as “rarest of rare.”
The accused argued that the death penalty was excessive in their appeal to the High Court.
In reference to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab and Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, the Bombay High Court reaffirmed that the death penalty is only applicable in situations where the crime was committed with unmatched brutality and the convicted person has no chance of changing their ways.
By using this standard, the High Court ultimately mitigated the death sentences of two defendants and cleared one.
Instead of applying the death penalty, the High Court condemned the two individuals whose conviction was upheld—Haribhau Telgote and his son, Shyam Telgote—to life in prison. Despite the brutality of the crime, the Court determined that it did not satisfy the strict “rarest of rare” requirement.
Dwarkabai Telgote was found not guilty by the court because it could not find enough evidence to support her involvement in the murder.
At the risk of redundancy, we could argue that he did not mention Dwarkabai’s involvement in the actual attack or that she was carrying a weapon. The Court noted that his testimony solely discussed Dwarkabai’s initial argument with the deceased in the field and her phone call to her relatives in the village of Malpura for assistance.
Case Title : State of Maharashtra vs. Haribhau Telgote
