The Supreme Court of India

INDIA: SC COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE OF KERALA MAN WHO KILLED WIFE, 4 CHILDREN IN 2008

April 24, 2025:

Taking into consideration among others, his “consistent efforts at being a model prisoner”, the Supreme Court on April 22, 2025 commuted the death sentence of a Kerala man convicted for the murder of his wife and four children and raping his 12-year-old daughter before killing her in 2008.
“Considering the facts that the convict-appellant had no prior antecedents; good conduct for the past 16-17 years of incarceration; difficulties in mental health and consistent efforts at being a model prisoner, we find that the imposition of death penalty would be unjustified. He is, therefore, removed from death row,” a bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta said deciding his appeal challenging conviction and the death sentence.
The court added, ”However , considering the severity of the crime, the number of persons killed, that out of five, four were his own children, we are of the view that he does not deserve to be set free and direct that he shall spend the remainder of his days in jail, till his last breath, hoping to do acts of penance to atone for the crimes he has committed and particularly for the fact that he extinguished four bright flames….The death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment till the end of natural life.”
Convict Reji Kumar alias Reji, a Chemistry graduate and diploma holder in computer applications, was an agricultural labourer.
In the course of his employment, he developed intimate relations with another woman.
Reji also suspected his wife Lissy of infidelity and believed that their youngest daughter, who was only 3-years-old when she was killed, was not his.
The couple had four kids — three daughters aged 12, 9 and 3 and a son, 10. Reji tried his best to deny the accusations, but the trial court concluded that he had indeed committed the murders, raped the first daughter, concealed the bodies and caused disappearance of evidence of his acts.
The trial court said “the manner of commission of the crime was well arranged and planned” and “the defence counsel’s argument that the offence was out of unhappiness and frustration, and not criminal tendency, was rejected.”
Confirming the death sentence by its judgment on November 12, 2014, the Kerala High Court said that “facts of this case would reveal that the appellant planned the murder of his wife and four children and executed the same in succession, during a period of two weeks.”
On appeal, the SC while upholding the conviction decided to examine if it would fall into the rarest of rare category as held by the trial court to warrant death sentence. For this, it examined the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of the case and the findings in the probation officer’s report, mitigating investigator’s report and the report of psychological assessment submitted to it. Among the mitigating factors, the court noted that he had an unblemished record in prison, had exhibited behaviours that are means of coping with overwhelming distress originating in the past from issues, such as parental neglect, mental illness and substance dependence, physical and sexual abuse.