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Chandigarh: Setting aside the death sentence awarded to a plumber convicted of abducting, raping, and murdering a five-year-old girl, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial from the stage of recording the accused’s statement under Section 313 of the CrPC. The court held that serious procedural lapses had occurred during the trial, striking at the very root of a fair criminal process.

A division bench comprisingJustice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Sukhvinder Kaur underlined that criminal trials demand strict adherence to procedure, observing that “every ‘i’ ought to be dotted and every ‘t’ ought to be crossed.” The bench made it clear that both the quality of investigation and the manner in which incriminating evidence is put to an accused are integral to the administration of criminal justice.

The court began its judgment by “affectionately” referring to the child victim as Laadli. She was five years old on the night of December 20–21, 2020, when she was allegedly abducted by Vinod alias Munna, a 27-year-old plumber with criminal antecedents, from her parents’ custody in Jhajjar. According to the prosecution, the accused took the child to his nearby residence, locked the doors, raped her, and then smothered her to death. An FIR was registered on December 21, 2020, at the Jhajjar City police station.

The Sessions Court later convicted the accused and awarded him the death penalty, resulting in a murder reference and appeal before the High Court.

Lapses in the Section 313 examination

Flagging grave infirmities in the trial, the bench noted that the trial court had failed to properly put all incriminating circumstances to the accused during his examination under Section 313 of the CrPC. The court observed that the entire testimony of the victim’s father was put to the accused as a single, composite question, with a further assertion that the victim’s mother had stated “in similar terms”—an assertion the High Court found factually incorrect.

Reproducing the question, which ran into 424 words, the bench said such an approach was fundamentally flawed. “To answer such long questions would be incomprehensible for ordinary people,” the court observed, adding that this method was contrary to the mandate of Section 313, which requires each incriminating circumstance to be put to the accused clearly and separately.

The bench held that these lapses prejudiced the accused and went to the core of a fair trial. While terming them “irregularities” that were legally curable, the court said they had not been cured at the appropriate stage.

Fair trial over hurried justice

Emphasising the larger principle at stake, the High Court said criminal justice demands meticulous compliance with procedural safeguards. “The yardstick of a fair criminal trial is the quality of investigation and the conduct of proceedings, as per gold standards, rather than perfunctory completion or hurried disposal,” the bench observed.

Rejecting the argument that remanding the matter would cause undue delay, the court noted that the murder reference had been pending since 2021. Considering the average duration of criminal trials in Punjab and Haryana, the bench held that no prejudice would be caused to the accused even if the incriminating questions were put to him after a lapse of five years.

At the same time, the court cautioned that justice to the victim could not be overlooked. It clarified that while appellate courts may, in certain circumstances, themselves put incriminating material to an accused or direct the trial court to do so, such powers cannot be exercised mechanically. Factors such as the nature of evidence, the defence taken, and objections raised must be carefully weighed.

Case remanded for fresh proceedings.

Concluding that remand was inevitable, the bench held that the only way to do justice to both the accused and the victim’s family was to restart the trial from the stage of recording the accused’s statement.

Accordingly, without commenting on the merits of the case, the High Court quashed the conviction and death sentence and remanded the matter to the Sessions Court. The trial court has been directed to put all incriminating evidence to the accused through short, specific questions, allow him to lead defence evidence within a reasonable time, and thereafter pass a fresh judgment. The Sessions Court was also asked to expedite the proceedings while “striking a balance between speedy justice and buried justice.”