Bombay HC Commutes Death Sentence to Father-Son Duo in Land Dispute Murders, Acquits Mother

Mumbai: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court commuted the death sentence of the father-son duo to life imprisonment and acquitted the mother of murder charges. The court disapproved of the trial court’s reasoning for reproducing some crime data of the last 10 years for the State of Maharashtra and noted that in criminal cases, each case has its own characteristics and distinctions.

The HC was hearing a plea filed by the State of Maharashtra seeking confirmation of death sentence of Haribhau Telgote, her husband Dwarkabai and son Shyam alias Kundan. A death sentence cannot be executed until it is approved by the HC. The trio also filed an appeal challenging their convictions and sentences.

Three people were sentenced to death by the sessions court on May 17 this year for killing four relatives over a land dispute.

There was a land dispute between Dwarkabai and his brothers. On June 28, 2015, Dwarkabai was sowing cotton seeds on the disputed land when his brother Dhanraj objected. An argument broke out and Dwarkabai accused Dhanraj’s son Shubham of inappropriate behavior. He called Haribhau, Shyam and another relative, Mangesh, who then came armed and attacked Shubham. When Dhanraj, his other son Gaurav and another brother Baburao intervened, they were also killed.

A bench comprising Justices Vinay Joshi and Abhay Mantri expressed dissatisfaction with the trial court’s reasoning for imposing the death penalty, particularly its reliance on Mahabharata verses and murder statistics. “The court’s reasoning for imposing the death penalty is quite strange,” the judges said, adding: “The court quoted a verse from the Mahabharata, which we thought was an inappropriate practice.”

The trial court also highlighted the statistic of 23,222 murders in Maharashtra in the last decade; The 19 cases involved four murders in a single incident, categorized as ‘most rare’.

However, the Supreme Court found this approach “erroneous” and stated: “The court must evaluate the case strictly on the facts of the case and not be influenced by the statistics and numbers of similar cases.” The court observed that the murders were not planned in advance, but were triggered by a momentary argument over the alleged mistreatment of Dwarkabai. The attack began as retaliation and only escalated when others tried to intervene.

The court noted that Dwarkabai neither used weapons nor directly participated in the killings; his involvement was limited to searching for others. Thus he was acquitted of all charges.

Additionally, the judges emphasized that there was no premeditated or homicidal motive and noted that the incident did not involve the “brutal killing of defenseless or defenseless segments of society.”

Considering the possibilities for reform, the court commuted the death sentences of Haribhau and Shyam to life imprisonment of 14 and 30 years respectively. HC also reduced the fine imposed on the father-son duo from Rs 50,000 to Rs 10,000.