Bombay HC clears two in Amboli double murder, cuts whole-life term to a fixed 20 years

A division bench upheld the murder conviction of Jitendra Rana for the 2011 stabbing of Keenan Santos and Ruben Fernandez and rejected the sudden-fight plea, but acquitted two co-accused of murder for want of common intention and held the trial court could not impose a term for the remainder of natural life.

The accused left the footpath after a slap, threatened to come back, and returned 10 to 15 minutes later with knives, a cricket stump and a bamboo. On 5 November 2026 the Bombay High Court held that this gap defeated any plea of sudden fight in the 2011 killings of Keenan Santos and Ruben Fernandez outside an Amboli restaurant.

Justice Sandesh D. Patil, writing for a division bench with Justice M. S. Karnik, upheld the murder conviction of Jitendra Fakirchand Rana alias Chaina, the first accused. The bench set aside the murder convictions of Sunil Omprakash Both alias Chota and Deepak Ishwar Piwal, the third and fourth accused.

It also held that the Sessions Court had no power to sentence anyone to jail for the remainder of natural life. In its place, the bench imposed 20 years of rigorous imprisonment without statutory remission on the first accused.

A confrontation outside the restaurant

On the night of 20 October 2011 a group of friends, three women and four men, watched an India-England cricket match on a big screen at the restaurant and then had dinner. While the women were at the washroom, the four men went to a paan shop on the footpath.

The prosecution case is that, as the women came down the staircase, the first accused, in a white Pathani suit, passed lewd comments and molested one of them. The second accused, Satish Dulgaj, also touched her inappropriately. She pushed them away and told her friends.

Keenan confronted the four men. They abused him, and the complainant slapped the first accused. The four left, threatening to return.

After 10 to 15 minutes they came back, the prosecution said. The first and second accused carried knives, the third a cricket stump and the fourth a bamboo.

The first accused stabbed Keenan repeatedly in the abdomen and arm, and the second accused stabbed Ruben in the abdomen. The complainant threw glasses, one of which struck the first accused on the head, and then a ladder, before the four ran off.

Keenan was declared dead within 10 to 15 minutes of reaching Kokilaben Hospital. Ruben, taken first to Cooper Hospital, died on 31 October 2011.

Life for the remainder of life

In Sessions Case No. 161 of 2012, on 5 May 2016, the Additional Sessions Judge in Greater Mumbai convicted all four of murder under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. Each was sentenced to imprisonment for life, described as the remainder of the accused’s life.

The first and second accused were also convicted of outraging modesty under Section 354, with two years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5,000. They also got sentences under Sections 509, 504 and 506(II) of the IPC, the last five years and a fine of Rs 5,000.

All four were convicted under the Bombay Police Act for carrying weapons contrary to a Police Commissioner’s order, with six months. The third and fourth accused were also convicted of voluntarily causing hurt under Section 323, with one year. The sentences were to run concurrently.

The first, third and fourth accused appealed. The second accused died on 3 November 2025, and his appeal was disposed of separately on 28 August 2026.

What the accused argued

Mr Sudeep Pasbola, Senior Advocate, led the defence for the first accused, with Dr Yug Mohit Chaudhary and Mr Gaurav Bhavnani for the fourth and third accused. Mr Aabad Ponda, Senior Advocate and Special Public Prosecutor, appeared for the State.

Their main argument was that no molestation took place. The FIR was silent on it, they said, Section 509 was added only on 7 November 2011 and Section 354 later, and the survivor’s statement was recorded on 7 November, 18 days after the incident.

They said the molestation story came in after public and media pressure so that the case would not fall under grave and sudden provocation. They also argued that the complainant’s group had been in a bar for about three hours and must have been drinking, and that a free fight had begun when the first accused was slapped.

The defence listed what the prosecution had not produced: CCTV footage, the restaurant bill and an alcohol test. It also pointed to the waiter, the injured man’s brother and a police constable, none of whom was examined.

The knife recovered from a hole under an electric box, close to the restaurant, was in an open place, they said. The DNA on it matched Ruben, not Keenan.

The third and fourth accused argued separately that they had only a stump and a bamboo, caused no fatal injury and shared no common intention to kill. The only injury attributed to the fourth accused was an abrasion on the complainant’s thumb.

The State: five eyewitnesses and a station diary

Mr Ponda argued that this was a case of direct evidence from five eyewitnesses, supported by medical, forensic and recovery evidence. A control-room station diary entry at about 2 am on 21 October recorded that a boy had used abusive words towards a girl before the assault, which he said answered the claim that molestation was an afterthought.

The DNA from blood on one knife matched blood on Ruben’s jeans, he said, and the chain of custody was unbroken. A test identification parade on 16 November 2011 and identification in court tied the four to the scene.

On sentence, he conceded fairly that the Sessions Court lacked power to order imprisonment for the remainder of natural life. But the High Court, he said, could impose such a sentence.

The molestation was proved, the bench held

The bench dealt with molestation first, since all the appellants pressed it. The survivor and her friend, an eyewitness walking with her, gave consistent accounts, and the court found nothing in cross-examination to shake either. A security guard, the complainant and a paan seller supported the broader account.

The paan seller did not see the act itself, the judges noted, and the prosecution did not claim he did. But he saw the women return frightened and point at the accused, after which the complainant confronted them. His not hearing a scream proved little.

The station diary entry, the bench said, recorded within hours a quarrel and abusive words towards a girl. It need not be an encyclopedia, and it supported the witnesses. The court held on the cumulative evidence that the first and second accused had molested her.

Why the late statements did not matter

The FIR, lodged in a state of shock after Keenan’s death, did not mention molestation. The complainant explained that the women had at first decided not to pursue it for fear of social stigma. A supplementary statement the next day recorded it, and the court called the explanation plausible.

An FIR is not an encyclopedia, the bench added, citing Satpal v. State of Haryana.

As for the survivor’s statement on 7 November, the investigating officer said he sent a constable for her on 5 November and her mother said she was unwell. She had seen two friends fatally attacked soon after being molested herself. At most, the bench saw a defect in investigation, and her friend’s statement was recorded the next day.

It relied on State of Madhya Pradesh v. Balveer Singh: a court should look for anything palpable pointing to malice before discarding evidence for delay. Had the delay been deliberate, the bench reasoned, the statements of the complainant and the friend, recorded the next day with fuller detail, would also have been held back.

Gaps in the investigation, answered one by one

On non-examination of witnesses, the bench said quality counts, not number, and five eyewitnesses had been examined, two of them unconnected to the complainant. CCTV footage, the restaurant bill and an alcohol test did not matter against five direct accounts.

Missing CCTV footage was at most an investigation defect, the court said, citing State of Karnataka v. K. Yarappa Reddy.

The medical records and early entries gave the number of assailants inconsistently, as three or four. The bench called these minor errors by hospital staff. Every eyewitness had always said four, and so did the earliest station diary entry.

The identification parade a month after arrest was not discarded, since nothing showed that the witnesses had been shown photographs. Their identification in court was substantive evidence, and the parade merely corroborated it.

The bench also rejected the alcohol theory as preposterous. A group that spent hours in a bar and restaurant had not been shown to have drunk, it said, and a sour smell in the stomach did not establish that Keenan had consumed alcohol.

The knife and the electric box

The eyewitnesses said clearly that the first accused stabbed Keenan and the second stabbed Ruben. The defence made much of which recovered knife was Article 1 and which Article 2, since the DNA on one matched Ruben. The bench said the confusion went only to identifying the recovered articles, not to the role each accused played.

The first accused led police to a hole beneath an electric box near Gulmohar building and produced a blood-stained knife, under Section 27 of the Evidence Act. It was hidden beneath the box, not lying open. Its location was within his special knowledge, and the sealing omission in the panchanama did not make the recovery doubtful.

A fight that was not sudden

The defence relied on Exception 4 to Section 300, which reduces murder to culpable homicide where death occurs without premeditation in a sudden fight in the heat of passion, with no undue advantage taken or cruel manner adopted. The bench relied on Kikar Singh v. State of Rajasthan and Surain Singh v. State of Punjab.

It held that none of the ingredients was satisfied. The slap was part of the first confrontation, no fight followed, and the accused left. The assault came only after an interval, and by then the complainant’s group was unarmed.

The accused had also threatened to come back and kill, the bench noted. They went away to get weapons and returned armed. The court said:

“This is a case where there was a pre-planned intention to commit the murder.” (para 212)

On the manner of the killing, Keenan’s intestines protruded from the wound, and Ruben fell on the spot. The bench called the assault gruesome, so the first accused could not claim undue advantage was not taken. The fight also had to be with the person killed, and it was not.

The bench found support in Asif Khan v. State of Maharashtra, where the accused left after a quarrel and returned about ten minutes later with weapons. Its finding on Exception 4, it stressed, was only about the first accused.

Why the other two escaped the murder charge

Section 34 makes each person liable for a criminal act done by several in furtherance of a common intention. The defence cited Mahboob Shah, Mohan Singh v. State of Punjab and Pandurang v. State of Hyderabad. A common intention needs a prearranged plan and a prior meeting of minds, even one formed on the spur of the moment.

The prosecution never said the third and fourth accused stabbed either man. They were armed with a stump and a bamboo, and the only injury attributed to them was to the complainant’s thumb. The five eyewitnesses differed on whom they assaulted, some saying the complainant and Benjamin and others including the deceased.

Nothing showed they knew of the first accused’s intention to kill. The bench summed up:

“the prosecution has failed to prove the element of common intention.” (para 218)

It was unsafe to hold that they assaulted Keenan or Ruben, so their murder convictions could not stand. The Sessions Court’s own finding that their injuries were not grave gave the bench another reason to doubt the charge.

The bench kept their convictions under Section 323 for assaulting the complainant and Benjamin. It also left the first accused’s other convictions in place. No appellant had argued against the sentences under Sections 509, 506 and 504 or the Bombay Police Act.

Remainder of natural life is not a sentence

The bench then turned to sentence. The Special Public Prosecutor accepted that the Sessions Court had no power to order jail for the remainder of natural life. The court agreed and said the trial court was:

“not within its jurisdiction to impose the sentence i.e. remainder of natural life” (para 221)

It relied on Naval Kishore v. State of Punjab. A trial court may impose imprisonment for life under Section 302 read with Section 34, but not a special category sentence that keeps the convict in prison for the rest of his life, which in effect excludes remission or commutation.

The bench weighed the crime against the man. It was the premeditated murder of two young men aged 25 and 29, who were enjoying an evening out. The first accused had also molested their friend. He was 25 at the time and not a habitual offender.

Relying on Union of India v. V. Sriharan, which upheld the rule that a court can fix a term beyond 14 years and put it beyond remission, it held that ends of justice were met by 20 years of rigorous imprisonment without any statutory remission.

Order

The appeals were partly allowed. The first accused is convicted of murder under Section 302 read with Section 34 and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 20 years without any statutory remission.

The third and fourth accused are acquitted of that offence, and the Sessions Court’s order is set aside to that extent. The remaining sentences imposed on the appellants are confirmed. All pending interim applications were disposed of.