The Chhattisgarh High Court

INDIA: CHHATTISGARH HC COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT IN 2022 RAPE-MURDER CASE

May 12, 2026:

The Chhattisgarh High Court, in a judgment delivered on May 1, 2026, commuted the death sentence of a 25-yr-old man to imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life.
The court upheld his conviction for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 25-year-old female peon, but ruled that the case did not meet the “rarest of rare” threshold required for capital punishment.
The incident occurred in August 2022 when the victim went missing after informing her family she was traveling to Bemetara. Investigations revealed the accused had lured the victim, whom he knew, to a secluded forest area in the Palgada Ghat region. Forensic evidence, including DNA reports and CCTV footage, alongside the discovery of the victim’s body based on the accused’s disclosure statement, established his guilt.
The High Court Bench, led by Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha, emphasised that while the crime was heinous, the sentencing process must balance retributive and reformative justice.
The Court found the trial court had failed to adequately perform the mandatory “structured and individualized” sentencing analysis required to determine if the alternative of life imprisonment was “unquestionably foreclosed.” The sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment for the duration of the convict’s natural life, without the possibility of remission, to ensure proportionality while avoiding the irreversible nature of the death penalty.
The Court reiterated that the death penalty is an exception, and life imprisonment is the rule, citing the necessity of evaluating the potential for reformation in capital cases. The judgment highlighted that compliance with Section 65B of the Evidence Act is a mandatory requirement for the admissibility of electronic evidence, which was verified in this case.