Punjab and Haryana HC Commutes Death Sentence in Rape and Murder of 7-Year-Old, Orders 50-Year Minimum Term Without Remission
Upholding conviction on all counts, the High Court commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment with a mandatory 50-year minimum and enhanced fines directed as compensation to the victim's family.
A Division Bench of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, comprising Justice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Ramesh Chander Dimri, on 11 August 2026 upheld the conviction of Pawan alias Moni for the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl child—referred to throughout the judgment as “Laadli”—but commuted the double death sentence awarded by the Additional Sessions Judge, Special Court, Kaithal. In its place, the bench imposed rigorous life imprisonment under Section 302 IPC with a stipulation that Pawan shall not be released unless he has served a minimum of 50 years' actual sentence, and rigorous imprisonment for 23 years under Section 6 of the POCSO Act. Fines totalling Rs. 73 lakh were enhanced and directed to be paid as compensation to the victim's family. The Murder Reference was dismissed, and the convict's criminal appeal was partly allowed only to the extent of the modification in sentence.
The Crime and the Trial at Kaithal
On 8 October 2022, Laadli—aged 7 years, 7 months and 23 days—went from her home in a village in District Kaithal to play in the alley and did not return. Her father, PW-1, filed a written complaint the same evening with the SHO of Police Station Kalayat. An SIT was constituted and a search began at midnight.
The following morning, on 9 October 2022, co-villager PW-3 Dilbag and Mohan Singh discovered a half-burnt dead body in a jungle on the premises of Dera Baba Mahiraval Puri, Village Kurar. Laadli's parents identified the body by her features and clothing. The post-mortem examination, conducted on 10 October 2022 by a medical board comprising Dr. Sachin Mandlay, Dr. Hamita Gupta, and Dr. Rakesh Mittal, documented extensive burns across the body and injuries consistent with sexual assault.
The Medical Board's final opinion, issued on 10 January 2023 (Ext P-49), concluded that the cause of death was smothering with manual strangulation associated with head injury, and that forcible recent vaginal penetration could not be ruled out. A DNA report from FSL Haryana, Madhuban, Karnal, confirmed the half-burnt body to be that of Laadli by matching her genetic profile to blood samples of her parents.
Police traced the accused through CCTV footage from village cameras showing a person walking with Laadli and returning alone approximately an hour and a half later, and through footage from a petrol pump showing the purchase of petrol in a bottle on the same date. Pawan alias Moni, then aged 21 years (date of birth 6 October 2001, as proved through school admission records), was arrested at 7–8 PM on 9 October 2022. He was medically examined, and his blood sample was obtained and forwarded to FSL Madhuban for DNA analysis.
The trial Court framed charges on 2 November 2022 under Sections 365, 366, 376-AB, 302, and 201 IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act. The accused pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. On 15 September 2023, the trial Court convicted him on all counts. On 16 September 2023, it sentenced him to death under Section 302 IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act, among other sentences. The trial Court referred the matter to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentence under Section 366 CrPC. Pawan also filed a criminal appeal under Section 374(2) CrPC challenging both conviction and sentence.
The CCTV Evidence Problem: Section 65-B Certificates
The convict's counsel and the Amicus Curiae, Senior Advocate P.S. Sekhon, raised a foundational challenge: the prosecution had not legally proved the CCTV footage because no valid certificate under Section 65-B(4) of the Indian Evidence Act had been tendered through the persons who controlled the digital devices.
The bench examined this carefully. The DVR—the original recording device—was never seized. A copy of the footage was taken onto a pen drive, which under the law required a Section 65-B certificate from the persons managing the relevant DVR. Certificates marked Ext P-68, P-69, and P-70 bore the signatures of PW-6 Satish Kumar, PW-7 Mahavir, and PW-8 Gurmeet respectively. However, all three witnesses in cross-examination denied having issued any such certificate. The Public Prosecutor did not put these certificates to them in examination-in-chief, did not apply to declare them hostile, and did not seek confrontation with their purported signatures. The trial Judge did not invoke Section 165 of the Indian Evidence Act.
Applying the three-Judge Bench ruling in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal [2020] 7 S.C.R. 180, the bench held that in the absence of the original device, Section 65-B certification is mandatory. Since the certificates were not proved through the witnesses who were said to have issued them, the CCTV footage and its contents were inadmissible as digital evidence against the accused.
The bench was careful, however, to note that the inadmissibility of the CCTV evidence did not collapse the prosecution case. The lapses in proving the certificate could not be attributed to the investigators. More importantly, the ocular evidence of PW-5 Hoshiyar Singh—a co-villager and relation of the accused who saw Pawan walking towards the school with Laadli at about 1–1:30 PM on 8 October 2022—independently established the last-seen circumstance. The attempt by the defence to attribute enmity through DW-1 Ram Karan (Pawan's father) did not dent this witness's credibility.
DNA Evidence and Chain of Custody
The DNA evidence (Ext P-41) was the centrepiece of the scientific case. FSL Madhuban's DNA Division report, prepared by Dr. Garima Chaudhary, Senior Scientific Officer, concluded that the male DNA profile generated from semen found on the victim's lower garment (Ext 4a) and shirt (Ext 4b) matched the DNA profile generated from the accused's blood sample (Exhibit 12).
The bench constructed a detailed chain-of-custody table tracking the movement of the victim's clothes and the accused's blood sample from the crime scene and medical examination through the malkhana at Police Station Kalayat to FSL Madhuban. Each link was proved through the testimony of PW-22 Beera Ram (Senior Scientific Officer, who prepared the crime scene report Ext P-59), PW-21 Dr. Sachin Mandlay (post-mortem board), PW-34 SI Mahabir Singh (investigating officer), PW-17 Head Constable Virender Singh (malkhana mohrer), PW-15 Constable Dilawar Singh (who deposited parcels at FSL on 12 October 2022), PW-24 Chitrlekha (Senior Scientific Officer, Biology Division, FSL), and PW-28 Dr. Garima Chaudhary (DNA Division, FSL).
The bench found the chain of custody unbroken, without delay, and legally proved. It applied the Supreme Court's rulings in Mukesh and Anr. v. State for NCT of Delhi [2017] 6 S.C.R. 1 and Karandeep Sharma @ Razia v. State of Uttarakhand [2025] 3 SCR 1482 on the admissibility and reliability of DNA evidence.
The bench held that once the DNA report pointed to the presence of the accused's semen on the victim's clothes, the burden under Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act shifted to the accused to explain this. Pawan denied the evidence when it was put to him under Section 313 CrPC (question no. 19) but offered no explanation.
The disclosure statements of the accused (Ext P-62 and P-63) were separately examined and found inadmissible: they neither led to the discovery of any incriminating evidence nor proved any relevant new fact, and were therefore hit by Section 26 of the Indian Evidence Act.
Circumstantial Evidence: Applying the Five Golden Principles
The prosecution case rested on circumstantial evidence. The bench applied the five-principle test from Sharad Birdhi Chand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra [1985] 1 SCR 88—itself drawing on Hanumant v. State of Madhya Pradesh [1952] 1 SCR 1091—which requires that circumstances be fully established, consistent only with guilt, conclusive in nature, exclusive of every other hypothesis, and forming a complete chain leaving no reasonable ground for innocence.
The circumstances proved were: Laadli's disappearance from the village on 8 October 2022 at around 2 PM; PW-5 Hoshiyar Singh's last-seen evidence placing Pawan with Laadli at 1–1:30 PM the same day; the discovery of her half-burnt body the next morning at Dera Baba Mahiraval Puri; identification by parents and co-villagers; the post-mortem confirming sexual assault and death by smothering and manual strangulation; the DNA match between semen on the victim's clothes and the accused's blood; and the accused's failure to offer any explanation for what happened to Laadli after he was seen with her.
The time gap between the last sighting and the recovery of the dead body was short enough, and the place isolated enough, that the possibility of any other person being the author of the crime was excluded. The bench upheld the conviction under Sections 302, 365, 366, 376-AB, and 201 IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act.
The Sentencing Question: From Death to a Fixed Term
The most substantial portion of the judgment addresses whether the death sentence should be confirmed or commuted. The bench surveyed over a dozen Supreme Court precedents on the rarest-of-rare doctrine, the crime test, the criminal test, and the possibility of reformation.
The psychological and sociological report filed by the State (in its reply dated 21 February 2026) recorded that Pawan showed “no active psychopathology” at the time of assessment, with an IQ of 94 (average intelligence), no intellectual disability, no psychotic or depressive symptoms, and nothing indicating social pathology. The bench noted the absence of any prior criminal record.
The bench found it significant that the murder appeared to have been committed in the aftermath of panic to destroy evidence of the rape, rather than as a premeditated act. It held that while there were no mitigating factors pointing to innocence, the totality of circumstances—the accused's age of 21 at the time, the absence of a prior criminal record, the psychological report, and the weight of Supreme Court precedents commuting death sentences in strikingly similar cases involving girl-children under 12—compelled commutation.
The bench drew extensively on precedents such as Pappu v. State of Uttar Pradesh [2022] 2 S.C.R. 13 (7-year-old victim, 30-year minimum), Bhaggi @ Bhagirath @ Naran v. State of Maharashtra [2024] 2 S.C.R. 111 (7-year-old victim, 30-year minimum), Rajendra Pralhadrao Wasnik v. State of Maharashtra [2018] 14 S.C.R. 585 (3-year-old victim, natural life without release), and the Constitutional Bench ruling in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab [1983] 1 SCR 145.
Departing from the 30-year minimum seen in many analogous cases, the bench fixed 50 years as the minimum actual sentence under Section 302 IPC. It reasoned that the irreparable harm was the murder, which destroyed any chance of medical intervention for the victim; that the convict must remain imprisoned until the sunset of what the bench described as his virility; and that this sent a clear message distinguishing the gravity of killing a rape victim to suppress evidence from other circumstances of commission.
For the sentence under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, the bench articulated a “descending scale model” for sentencing in the absence of statutory guidelines: as the victim's age decreases from the age of consent downward, the sentence rises proportionately, and greater cruelty and more perpetrators attract harsher sentences. Applying this model, with the victim aged approximately 7 years and 7 months and a single perpetrator, the bench fixed 23 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 23 lakh.
The State's counsel had submitted that if the death sentence was commuted, the accused should not be released until the end of his natural life. The bench's 50-year minimum without remission under Section 302 IPC effectively addresses this concern, though it remains technically subject to constitutional clemency powers under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution.
Order
CRA-D-1302-2023 (Pawan alias Moni v. State of Haryana) was partly allowed. Murder Reference No. 7 of 2023 was dismissed consequent to the commutation. The conviction on all counts was upheld. The sentences stand as follows:
Section 302 IPC: Rigorous imprisonment for life, with a stipulation that Pawan alias Moni shall not be released unless he has served a minimum actual sentence of 50 years. Fine enhanced to Rs. 50,00,000 (Rupees fifty lakh), to be realised from the convict and paid as compensation to the victim's family. No default imprisonment, as the fine is to be recovered and disbursed as compensation.
Section 6 of the POCSO Act: Rigorous imprisonment for 23 years. Fine enhanced to Rs. 23,00,000 (Rupees twenty-three lakh), similarly to be paid as compensation. No default imprisonment.
Sections 365, 366, and 201 IPC: Rigorous imprisonment for 7 years, 10 years, and 7 years respectively (as awarded by the trial Court), with fines of Rs. 1,000 each; sentence in default of payment of fine reduced to simple imprisonment for one day for each default.
All substantive sentences are to run concurrently. The period of custody from arrest under this FIR until award of sentence is set off under Section 428 CrPC. The compensation is to be distributed equally to the parents and siblings of the deceased who are surviving at the time of disbursement. Case property is to be destroyed after six months from the pronouncement of this judgment, subject to any direction from the Supreme Court if further proceedings are filed. A certified copy of the order is to be transmitted to the Sessions Court under Section 412 BNSS / Section 371 CrPC.