Bombay High Court Commutes Death Sentences in Vipin Bafna Kidnap-Murder, Orders 30-Year Life Terms With No Remission
Confirming guilt on all IPC charges but rejecting the “rarest of rare” classification, the Bombay High Court replaced death sentences on Chetan Pagare and Aman Jat with 30-year life imprisonment carrying no remission.
A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Justice Bharati Dangre and Justice Manjusha Deshpande, on 25 June 2026 upheld the conviction of Chetan Yashwantrao Pagare and Aman Prakatsingh Jat for the kidnapping and murder of 22-year-old Vipin Bafna in June 2013, but declined to confirm the death sentences imposed by the Special MCOCA Court at Nashik. The Bench found the prosecution's circumstantial evidence—spanning CDR records, forensic analysis of a recovered memory card, eyewitness accounts, and discovery of weapons under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act—reliable and complete. It concluded, however, that the case did not qualify as one of the “rarest of rare,” and commuted both death sentences to life imprisonment for 30 years with no remission. The State's Confirmation Case No. 1 of 2023 was dismissed; the convicts' Criminal Appeal Nos. 108 and 116 of 2023 were partly allowed to that extent.
The Crime and the Trial at Nashik
Five accused persons faced trial before the Special Judge, Nashik in Special (MCOCA) Case No. 2 of 2013. The charge-sheet alleged that under the gang leadership of Pagare (accused no. 1), the group kidnapped Vipin Bafna on 8 June 2013, confined him for more than five days, and demanded a ransom of Rs. 1 crore from his father Gulabchand (PW-9). When the father approached the police instead of paying, Vipin was killed. His body was found on 14 June 2013 in an agricultural field at Adgaon Shivar on the Vinchur-Dalvi road.
Charges were framed under Section 3(1)(i), 3(1)(ii), 3(2), and 3(4) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (MCOCA), and under Sections 120-B, 364-A, 302, 201, 343, and 506 read with Section 34 of the IPC, along with provisions of the Arms Act and Section 37(1) punishable under Section 135 of the Bombay Police Act.
The prosecution examined 37 witnesses. The trial judge, by judgment dated 16 December 2022, acquitted three accused—Akshay Sule, Sanjay Pawar, and Pammi Chaudhari—of all charges. Pagare and Jat were acquitted of the MCOCA charges but convicted under Sections 302, 364-A, 201, 120-B, 343, and 506 read with Section 34 of the IPC. The trial judge sentenced both to death on being satisfied that the offence fell within the “rarest of rare” category, enumerating nine aggravating circumstances against only two mitigating ones. Under Section 28(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the death sentence was referred for confirmation.
The Prosecution's Chain of Circumstances
The case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence. The chain opened with Gulabchand's missing complaint filed at Panchavati Police Station on 9 June 2013 after Vipin failed to return from his tuition classes in Nashik, where his uncle had dropped him at around 5:00 p.m. on 8 June 2013. Gulabchand received a ransom call on 9 June 2013 from Vipin's mobile number, demanding Rs. 1 crore. A second call arrived on 13 June 2013 from an unknown number. The next day, his son's body was found.
Two independent witnesses were central to establishing the accused's link to Vipin. Hemant Deokar, a rickshaw driver (PW-18), deposed that on 9 June 2013 he ferried Pagare, Jat, and a slim person—later identified from photographs as Vipin—first to Jat's flat at River View Apartment, Kevdiban, and then to Nav Akash Apartment, Building No. 12, Nishant Garden. Jat called Vipin by name and asked him to carry bedding upstairs. Deokar made the connection only after seeing the accused's photographs in a newspaper while hospitalised; he then called the police.
Mayur Kurhade (PW-17), a friend of the accused, deposed that on 12 June 2013 Pagare summoned him by phone to the flat. There, he found Vipin crawling on his knees, hands tied behind him, legs crossed and bound with black lace, mouth covered with a white strip of cloth. Pagare and Jat threatened Kurhade into silence. His statement was recorded on 16 June 2013 and again before a Magistrate on 19 June 2013.
A memory card seized from Jat under a discovery panchanama drawn under Section 27 of the Evidence Act contained three video files dated 9 June 2013 and 13 June 2013. The Forensic Science Laboratory, Kalina, analysed the card through Scientific Officer Sandip Patil (PW-26), who confirmed no tampering and identified the person in the videos as matching photographs of Vipin. When the memory card was played before the court, Vipin was seen with his hands and legs bound and tape on his mouth, narrating how Pagare had lured him and confined him to demand money from his father.
CDR evidence established that mobile number 7773989300—traced to a SIM in the name of Sunita Tekade, mother of PW-27 Praful Tekade, whose handset was stolen in April 2013—was used to make repeated calls to Vipin's number from 23 May 2013 onward, with the handset's IMEI traced to a Nokia 1200 sold by mobile-shop owner Radhakisan Gaikwad (PW-22) to a buyer he noted as “Aman.” A second number, 9011972139, in the name of Rameshwar Wad (PW-28), was used to call Gulabchand on 13 June 2013 demanding ransom. Both SIM cards were in the stolen handset. The prosecution also proved that Pagare used SIM number 9764585333, which he had taken from Harshal Shirapure (PW-25) without returning it.
Discovery panchanamas drawn under Section 27 on 15 June 2013 led to recovery of a 14-inch blood-stained knife and a sword-stick from a flat in Nav Akash Building, along with blood-stained clothes, a memory card, cello-tape, and shoelace from Jat's flat. Dr. Anand Pawar (PW-11) opined that 22 of the 26 wounds recorded in the postmortem were consistent with those weapons. The postmortem report attributed death to “hemorrhagic shock due to multiple stab injuries and multiple rupture of organs,” with fractures of the 7th, 8th, and 9th ribs on the right side.
Chetan Pagare, when medically examined on 15 June 2013, was found to have incised wounds on three fingers of his left hand caused by a sharp weapon, with injuries assessed as more than 24 hours old, consistent with a struggle at the time of killing.
The High Court's Assessment of Guilt
The Bench tested the prosecution's evidence against the five conditions for circumstantial evidence set out by the Supreme Court in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra (1984) 4 SCC 116—the “panchsheel” of circumstantial proof. It found every link in the chain established without a break.
The defence of both accused was total denial. Under Section 313 CrPC, neither accused explained any of the circumstances put to them. The court found the prosecution witnesses consistent with each other and their testimony unshattered in cross-examination. It recorded that procedural lacunae pointed out by counsel for Pagare (the absence of a station diary entry, non-filing of muddemal register extracts, use of non-local panchas) and by counsel for Jat (absence of a Section 65-B certificate on the memory card clone, blank columns in the postmortem report, failure of PW-22 to identify Jat in court) did not go to the root of the matter and did not render the prosecution's case unbelievable.
On the Section 65-B point, the court noted the objection but found the overall electronic evidence, including PW-26's deposition that he found no tampering and his in-court demonstration of the original memory card, reliable in context. The Bench affirmed the trial judge's finding that both accused were responsible for kidnapping Vipin, confining him, demanding ransom, and causing his death, confirming guilt under Sections 302, 364-A, 343, 506, 201, and 120-B read with Section 34 of the IPC.
The Death Penalty Question: Rarest of Rare Doctrine
The trial judge had identified nine aggravating circumstances: criminal antecedents and prior registration of offences over ten years; commission of the offence while on bail; use of deadly weapons with intent to create public fear; murder for ransom; outrageous inhumane treatment including tying the victim's limbs and recording video of his confinement; total depravity of motive; cold-blooded pre-planned killing without provocation; the victim's vulnerability as a defenseless 22-year-old; and the brutality shocking judicial and social conscience. Against these, the trial judge found only two mitigating factors—the young age of the accused (25 and 22 at the time) and absence of prior conviction—and concluded these were outweighed.
The High Court surveyed the governing framework: Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980) 2 SCC 684, Macchi Singh v. State of Punjab (1983) 3 SCC 470, Shankar Kisanrao Khade v. State of Maharashtra (2013) 5 SCC 546, and Manoj v. State of M.P. (2023) 2 SCC 353. From this body of authority, the Bench drew the principle that mitigating circumstances must be read liberally; that life imprisonment is the rule and death the exception; and that imposition of death requires affirmative satisfaction that reformation is unachievable and that the alternative of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed.
Applying the crime test and criminal test from Shankar Kisanrao Khade, the Bench reached a different conclusion from the trial court. It accepted that the offence was cruel and inhuman. But it found that the accused, aged 22 and 25 at the time, were not professional killers. They had prior cases registered but no convictions. The Bench noted from the memory card transcription that Vipin, while in confinement, spoke in a “very casual manner” and did not appear to be apprehending death. The Bench characterised the killing as the impulsive act of young men seeking quick wealth: when the ransom was not paid and they feared exposure, they eliminated the victim and tried to dispose of his body, rather than acting from the mindset of habitual or professional murderers.
The court also noted the warning in Bachan Singh that “judges should never be bloodthirsty,” and that mitigating factors must receive a liberal and expansive construction. Relying on Manoj, it acknowledged the risk of a purely crime-centric analysis drawing attention away from the criminal and his reformative potential. It answered both questions posed in Macchi Singh—whether life imprisonment is inadequate and whether there is no alternative but death—in the negative.
The Bench concluded: while the act was abhorrent, the case did not fall within the rarest of rare category sufficient to foreclose the option of life imprisonment. It set aside the death sentences and directed that both accused undergo life imprisonment for 30 years with no remission.
Order
The Confirmation Case No. 1 of 2023 filed by the State of Maharashtra is dismissed. Criminal Appeal No. 108 of 2023 filed by Chetan Yashwantrao Pagare and Criminal Appeal No. 116 of 2023 filed by Aman Prakatsingh Jat are partly allowed. The finding of conviction against both appellants under Sections 302, 364-A, 343, 506, 201, and 120-B read with Section 34 of the IPC is confirmed. The sentence of death in respect of each appellant is set aside and commuted to life imprisonment for 30 years with no remission.