In a record of sorts, a judge in the Delhi high court pronounced 65 judgments on Monday, her last working day. Sitting in different combinations of division benches headed by her, Justice Mukta Gupta delivered verdicts on a host of matters ranging from murder and rape appeals to commuting a death row prisoner’s punishment to life without remission for 20 years. She retires on Tuesday, after a 14-year-long stint as a judge in the high court.
The cause list of the HC for Monday, which came out a day before, created a buzz when lawyers, litigants and court watchers spotted a list of 65 verdicts scheduled to be pronounced by her. Since the court is on vacation, only designated benches are presiding on fixed days, resulting in mostly urgent cases being heard and hardly any verdicts being handed down.
However, Monday turned out to be a packed day for lawyers and litigants awaiting their fate before Justice Gupta’s bench. First a bench of her and Justice Anish Dayal commuted the death penalty awarded to a man for kidnapping for ransom and killing a 12-year-old child to life imprisonment with no remission till 20 years.
Writing for the bench, Justice Gupta said the crime can’t be held to be the rarest of rare since the murder wasn’t pre-planned or diabolic enough to shock the collective conscience of society. It also pointed out that reformation of the convict was possible. The same bench also upheld the conviction and 10-year sentence of five UP policemen for custodial torture of a 26-year-old man causing his death in 2006. However, it rejected the appeal of the complainant, the father of the victim, seeking the police trial for murder.
Later, another bench of Justices Gupta and Poonam A Bamba modified the punishment awarded by a trial court to five convicts of a 2014 gang-rape case from life sentence for the remainder of their natural lives to life imprisonment.