Kathua gangrape: SC sets aside high court verdict, orders accused to be tried as adult

New Delhi: In a latest update pertaining to the sensational gangrape and murder case of an eight-year-old nomadic girl in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir, the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday held that one of the accused was not a juvenile and now can be tried as an adult for the crime.
The top court further stated that in the absence of statutory proof on the same, medical opinions regarding an accused person’s age cannot be “brushed aside.”
“Medical opinion regarding age in absence of any other conclusive evidence should be considered to determine the age range of the accused. Whether medical evidence can be relied upon or not depends on the value of the evidence,” a bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and JB Pardiwala remarked.
It set aside the orders of the Chief Judicial Magistrate at Kathua and the high court which had held that the accused Shubam Sangra was a juvenile and hence to be tried separately.
“We set aside the judgements of the CJM Kathua and the high court and hold that the accused was not a juvenile at the time of the commission of offence,” Justice Pardiwala said while pronouncing the verdict.
The minor girl was raped in a Kathua village in J&K in 2019. A special court, in June 2019, had sentenced three men to life imprisonment in the case and sentenced three police officers to five-year imprisonment for causing the destruction of evidence. However, the trial against Sangra was shifted to the Juvenile Justice Board. The top court, on February 7, 2020, had stayed the proceedings before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) against Sangra.
It had stayed the proceedings after the J&K administration claimed that the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had erroneously affirmed the order of a trial court holding him as juvenile at the time of the offence in 2018..
Senior advocate P S Patwalia, appearing for the JK administration, had said the high court had on October 11, 2019, wrongly affirmed the trial court order of March 27, 2018, without appreciating that the date of birth recorded in the municipal and school records are contradictory to each other.
He had said that despite the notice to the ‘minor’ accused issued by the apex court on January 6, 2020 on the administration’s appeal, the JJB has continued its proceedings against the accused, treating him as a juvenile.
Patwalia had contended that the accused, then treated as juvenile, was one of the main conspirators of the entire incident and kidnapped, gang-raped and murdered the victim.
The JJB had in 2019 framed charges against the ‘minor’ and continued with the proceedings of examination of prosecution witnesses.
The top court on May 7, 2018 had transferred the trial of the case from Kathua in Jammu to Pathankot in Punjab and ordered for day-to-day trial after some lawyers prevented the Crime Branch officials from filing a charge sheet in the sensational case.
The special court on June 10, 2019 sentenced three men to life imprisonment till last breath for the ghastly crime that shook the nation.
Sanji Ram, the mastermind and caretaker of the ‘devasthanam’ (temple) where the crime took place in January, 2018; Deepak Khajuria, a Special Police Officer, and Parvesh Kumar, a civilian the three main accused were spared death penalty, a punishment sought by the prosecution during the year long in-camera trial in the court.
The three given life term were convicted under Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) sections relating to criminal conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, gang rape, destruction of evidence, drugging the victim and common intention.
The other three accused Sub Inspector Anand Dutta, Head Constable Tilak Raj and special police officer Surender Verma were convicted for destruction of evidence to cover up the crime and handed down five years in jail and Rs 50,000 fine each.
The trial court had acquitted the seventh accused Vishal Jangotra, son of Sanji Ram, giving him the ‘benefit of doubt’. (Agencies)