The Madras High Court has commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence of a man who killed his former girlfriend by pushing her in front of an approaching train at St Thomas Mount railway station in 2022.
A division bench of Justices N Sathish Kumar and M Jothiraman passed the order on Thursday while partly allowing the appeal filed by the convict, D. Sathish. The court, however, directed that he will not be entitled to any statutory remission or commutation until he has completed at least 20 years of actual imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, Sathish had been stalking the woman, a college student, after she ended their relationship. On the day of the incident, he waited at the railway station and pushed her onto the track as a train entered the platform. Before she could get up, she was run over.
The bench noted that evidence from witnesses and earlier complaints showed that the accused had a “love affair” with the deceased and had been harassing her after she disowned him. He had even created a ruckus outside her college, the court observed.
From the deposition of witnesses and the materials on record, the bench said it was clear that Sathish pushed the victim “in a fit of rage” and had “meticulously executed his plan of doing away with the deceased.”
His conduct on the day of the crime and on the previous day showed clear intent, the judges said, rejecting the defence’s argument that the act fell within any statutory exception.
The bench affirmed his conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, holding that the motive and execution of the crime were clearly established. “Merely because the deceased girl disowned him will not give licence to the accused to take away her life,” the bench observed.
The court also recorded the devastating impact of the crime on the victim’s family — her father died by suicide after the incident, and her mother, who was battling cancer, also passed away thereafter. “The entire family of the deceased was devastated and shattered,” the judges noted.
Despite confirming the murder charge, the High Court held that the death penalty was not justified. It took into account Sathish’s age, lack of criminal antecedents, and reports from the Probation Officer and the Superintendent of Prisons suggesting a strong possibility of reform.
“The very sentencing policy itself was only for reformative justice and not retributive justice,” the bench said, adding that life imprisonment with a mandatory minimum of 20 years would meet the ends of justice.
