Thirteen years after the gruesome killing of Mumbai lawyer Pallavi Purkayastha, the Bombay High Court on Monday upheld the conviction and life imprisonment of security guard Sajjad Mugal Pathan, rejecting appeals seeking enhancement of his sentence to the death penalty.
A division bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and Neela Gokhale held that the prosecution had “established the guilt of the convict beyond all reasonable doubt” and found “no infirmity” in the trial court’s 2015 judgment sentencing Pathan to life imprisonment for the 2012 crime.
“In all human probability, the act of murder of the deceased is done by Sajjad,” the bench observed, adding that the evidence clearly established a complete chain of circumstances linking the accused to the crime. The court also accepted the veracity of Pathan’s extra-judicial confession made to a co-worker, noting that the witness’s statement “inspires confidence.”
The bench said the motive — Pathan’s intent to sexually assault the victim — was firmly established. “We find this motive to be sufficiently established. This assumes great significance in establishing Sajjad’s culpability,” the judges said.
While upholding the trial court’s decision to impose life imprisonment, the High Court clarified that Pathan will remain in prison for the rest of his natural life and will not be entitled to parole or furlough, citing his past conduct of absconding after being released on parole in 2016. He was re-arrested in 2023.
The judges emphasized that “the interests of justice will be met in sentencing the convict to life imprisonment till the end of his natural life,” dismissing the Maharashtra government’s and the victim’s father’s pleas seeking the death penalty.
Purkayastha, a 25-year-old lawyer and legal adviser to filmmaker Farhan Akhtar’s firm Excel Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., was found murdered in her Wadala flat on August 9, 2012. Daughter of an IAS officer, she lived with her partner, lawyer Avik Sengupta.
Investigations revealed that Pathan, employed as a security guard at her building, deliberately cut off the power supply to her apartment to gain access. After restoring the supply, he used stolen keys to enter her flat later that night, attempting to molest her. When she resisted, he slit her throat and fled.
He was arrested the following day at Mumbai Central railway station while attempting to flee to Jammu and Kashmir via Gujarat.
In July 2015, a sessions court convicted Pathan of murder, molestation, and criminal trespass but declined to impose the death penalty, ruling that the case did not qualify as the “rarest of rare.”
The Bombay High Court on Monday reaffirmed that finding, concluding that the prosecution’s case was “complete and consistent with the convict’s guilt,” leaving no reasonable ground for doubt about his involvement.
The Bombay High Court’s ruling closes a 13-year-long legal battle, ensuring that the convict, Sajjad Mugal Pathan, will remain behind bars for life, with the court denying any scope for parole or premature release given his conduct and the brutality of the crime.
