Five years after the rape-cum-murder of a 23-year-old woman travelling in a local train in Kerala shocked the conscience of entire State, the SC on Thursday let the accused off the gallows after it found evidence insufficient to nail him for the girl’s death.
Though acquitting him of the serious charge of murder, a three-judge bench that heard the appeal filed by the accused Govindaswamy retained him in jail for his entire life for the charge of raping Soumya in an injured state as she lay wounded beside the railway track after she fell off the moving train.
The bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, PC Pant and UU lalit came to the conclusion that the rape was the most brutal and grotesque act and deserved maximum punishment.
It said, “Having regard to the fact that the said offence (rape) was committed on the deceased who had already suffered extreme injuries on her body, we are of the view that not only the offence under Section 376 IPC (rape) was committed by the accused, the same was so committed in a most brutal and grotesque manner which would justify the imposition of life sentence as awarded by the trial court and confirmed by the Kerala HC.”
But SC set aside the concurrent death sentence awarded to Govindaswamy by the trial court and HCs after raising doubts whether the fatal injury caused to the victim was due to pushing her off the train by the accused by way of pushing or was a result of her own action to jump off the train.
Justice Gogoi, writing the judgment for the Bench said, “The fact that the deceased survived for a couple of days after the incident and eventually died in hospital would clearly militate against any intention of the accused to cause death by the act of keeping the deceased in a supine position.”
The incident occurred on February 1, 2011 while the victim was travelling in the ladies compartment of a local train from Ernakulam to Shoranur, the place where she stayed.
The accused entered the ladies compartment spotting the victim alone and tried to molest her following which she fell off the train. The accused too jumped out and later raped her. She succumbed to her injuries at the hospital five days later.