He raped and set a minor on fire. The Supreme Court spared his life.
The girl told everyone — her family, the magistrate, even a defence witness — who did it. The court believed her. But the death sentence didn't stick.
20
years.
The girl told everyone — her family, the magistrate, even a defence witness — who did it. The court believed her. But the death sentence didn't stick.
She named him while burning. He was sentenced to death. Then the Supreme Court said — not so fast.
When the dying girl spoke — and kept speaking
The girl was alone in her house when two men broke in. She was a minor. They raped her. Then they set her on fire. She came out of the burning house and told her relatives who had done it. She told the Executive Magistrate who came to record her statement. She told the Medical Officer who examined her. She even told a witness called by the defence. Everyone heard the same name: Rabbu, also known as Sarvesh.
The first person she spoke to was PW-1, a relative who reached the scene. Then PW-2. Then PW-13 and PW-14. Each time, the story was the same: Rabbu and another man had entered her home, raped her, and set her on fire. She gave her account while burns covered her body. The room was heavy with the smell of burnt fabric and medicine. The relatives leaned close to catch every word.
An Executive Magistrate (a government officer authorised to record official statements) arrived at the hospital and recorded her statement in a question-and-answer format. Before the recording began, the Medical Officer (PW-9) examined her and certified that she was in a fit mental state to speak. After the recording ended, the doctor checked again and confirmed she remained fit throughout. The magistrate's voice was steady as he read each question aloud. The pen scratched against the form as the girl's answers were written down. The statement was consistent with what she had told everyone else.
She also gave a statement under Section 164 of the CrPC (a formal statement recorded by a Judicial Magistrate that can be used as evidence in court). And then, remarkably, even DW-1 — a witness the accused had brought to help his case — confirmed that the girl had named Rabbu. The defence witness did not help the defence. He hurt it.
The girl succumbed to her injuries. But her words — recorded, witnessed, corroborated — remained.
The DNA that sealed the case
Beyond the dying declarations, there was forensic evidence. DNA evidence collected from the scene matched Rabbu. The combination of multiple consistent dying declarations and scientific evidence left little room for doubt. The trial court — the First Additional Sessions Judge in Bina, District Sagar — convicted Rabbu under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act, a law specifically designed to protect minors from sexual abuse).
The charges were: house-trespass to commit an offence punishable with death (Section 450 IPC), rape of a woman under sixteen (Section 376(2)(i) IPC), gang rape (Section 376D IPC), punishment for causing death during rape (Section 376A IPC), and murder (Section 302 IPC), read with common intention (Section 34 IPC). Under the POCSO Act, he was charged with aggravated penetrative sexual assault (Section 5(g)/6).
The trial court sentenced him to death on 20 August 2018. The High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur confirmed both the conviction and the death sentence on 17 January 2019. Rabbu appealed to the Supreme Court.
The question the Supreme Court had to answer
By the time the case reached the Supreme Court in September 2024 — Criminal Appeal Nos. 449-450 of 2019, decided on 12 September 2024 — the conviction was not seriously in dispute. The dying declarations were too many, too consistent, and too well-documented. The DNA evidence was too strong. The defence witness had actually corroborated the prosecution's case. Rabbu's lawyers challenged the conviction, but the bench — Justices B.R. Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra, and K.V. Viswanathan — was not persuaded.
The real fight was about the death sentence.
The prosecution argued that this was a "rarest of rare" case — the legal threshold the Supreme Court has set for imposing the death penalty. A minor girl, alone in her home, raped by two men, then set on fire. The victim had been set on fire and succumbed to her injuries.
The defence argued that Rabbu was only 22 years old at the time of the crime. He had lost his mother and brother at a young age. He came from a socio-economically backward background. He had no prior criminal record. His conduct in prison had been satisfactory. And there was a possibility — however slight — that he could be reformed.
Why the death penalty did not survive
The Supreme Court applied what it called the "middle path" — a doctrine that first emerged from a 2008 case called Swamy Shraddananda (2) v. State of Karnataka. Between the death penalty and ordinary life imprisonment (which in India typically means 14 years with remission, or early release), there is a third option. A fixed term of imprisonment — say, 20 or 25 years — without any possibility of remission. No early release. No good conduct discounts. The prisoner serves every single day of that term.
The court examined the mitigating factors. Rabbu's young age at the time of the crime — 22 — was not, by itself, enough to commute a death sentence. But combined with his loss of parents and sibling, his socio-economic backwardness, his clean criminal record, and his good behaviour in prison, it tilted the balance. The court found that this was not a case where the death penalty was the only just punishment. A fixed term of 20 years rigorous imprisonment without remission would serve the ends of justice.
The court held that "a dying declaration recorded by an Executive Magistrate in question-answer form, endorsed by a Medical Officer certifying the fit mental state of the declarant both before and after recording, and corroborated by oral dying declarations made to multiple family members and even a defence witness, is reliable and trustworthy and sufficient to sustain conviction." The conviction was unshakable. The DNA evidence confirmed it. Rabbu would spend 20 years in prison, no matter what.
What this means for lawyers and litigants
Two things stand out from this judgment, cited as Rabbu @ Sarvesh v. The State of Madhya Pradesh, 2024 INSC 720. First, the evidentiary value of a dying declaration recorded under proper safeguards — with a Medical Officer certifying fitness before and after, and a Magistrate using a question-answer format — is extremely high. Multiple consistent dying declarations, especially when corroborated by independent evidence like DNA, can sustain a conviction even in the most serious cases.
Second, the "middle path" is now an established sentencing option in Indian criminal law. For cases that fall short of the "rarest of rare" threshold but where ordinary life imprisonment seems inadequate, courts can impose a fixed term without remission. This gives judges a tool to punish severe crimes severely without resorting to the death penalty. The precedents guiding this approach include Swamy Shraddananda (2), Shankar Kisanrao Khade v. State of Maharashtra, and Mohinder Singh v. State of Punjab, among others.
The court also clarified a key sentencing principle: while the age of the accused at the time of commission of the crime alone cannot justify commutation, the age along with other mitigating factors — loss of parents and sibling at tender age, socio-economic backwardness, absence of criminal antecedents, satisfactory prison conduct, and possibility of reformation — can certainly be considered in determining whether the death penalty needs to be commuted.
THE PLAY: When defending a client facing the death penalty, build a record of every mitigating factor — age, family history, socio-economic background, prison conduct, and any evidence of reform — from the trial stage itself; the Supreme Court will not consider factors that were not placed on record earlier.
The girl's words carried the day
She named him while burning. The court believed her. The dying declaration recorded by the Executive Magistrate, endorsed by the Medical Officer, and corroborated by PW-1, PW-2, PW-13, PW-14, and even DW-1 — the defence's own witness — was found to be reliable and trustworthy. The DNA evidence confirmed the identification.
But the court also believed that a 22-year-old who had lost his family and grown up in poverty could change. The death sentence was commuted. Rabbu will serve 20 years rigorous imprisonment without remission — every single day of it. The girl's words did not send him to the gallows. They sent him to prison for two decades.