Susanta Chowdhury’s death sentence for stabbing his ex-girlfriend 45 times was commuted to life imprisonment. The court ruled the case was not in the “rarest of rare” category and allowed no remission for 40 years.
Kolkata: In a recent decision, the Calcutta High Court has changed the punishment of Susanta Chowdhury, who was earlier given the death sentence for brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend, to life imprisonment without the chance of remission for 40 years.
The Court said that the case does not fall under the “rarest of rare” category and that there is still a chance for Chowdhury’s reformation.
A division bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md Shabbar Rashidi delivered the judgment on Wednesday, while hearing a reference on the death sentence and an appeal filed by Chowdhury against his conviction.
Chowdhury was arrested by the police in May 2022. According to the case details, he murdered his 21-year-old ex-girlfriend by stabbing her 45 times near her hostel.
At the time, she was returning from a movie. Both had met at a coaching centre and were briefly in a relationship. However, the victim and her family had later accused Chowdhury of harassment and told him to stay away from them.
On the day of the crime, Chowdhury followed the victim and attacked her on the road. Witnesses said that he continued stabbing her even though she did not resist.
It was also found that he had brought a toy gun with him to scare away anyone who might try to stop him from attacking her.
After going through the case, the High Court held that the crime, although brutal, was not done with the purpose of spreading fear among the public.
The judges also noted that Chowdhury did not have any criminal record before this incident and that he is still young.
The Court said:
“Taking into consideration the entire facts and circumstances of the present case including the ratio of the authorities relating to death penalty as also sentence of life imprisonment without remission, in our view, interest of justice would be subserved by commuting the death penalty to one of life imprisonment without the possibility of remission for another 40 years from the date of arrest of the appellant.”
The Court clearly said that it cannot label this case under the most extreme category of crimes that deserve the death penalty.
It added:
“Similarly, so far as the criminal test or the mitigating circumstances are concerned, we are not in a position to arrive at a finding that it is 0% as against the appellant. Age of the appellant is in favour of the appellant. The nature of crime cannot be classified as rarest of rare cases.”
The Bench emphasized that Susanta Chowdhury is not someone who cannot be reformed. They said he still has the possibility to change and improve, which is why the death sentence was not justified in this case.
the Court ruled,
“Taking into consideration the entire facts and circumstances of the present case including the ratio of the authorities relating to death penalty as also sentence of life imprisonment without remission, in our view, interest of justice would be subserved by commuting the death penalty to one of life imprisonment without the possibility of remission for another 40 years from the date of arrest of the appellant,”
Susanta Chowdhury was represented by Senior Advocate Kallol Mondal, along with Advocates Krishan Ray and Anamitra Banerjee. The State was represented by Public Prosecutor Debashish Roy, and Advocates Amita Gaur and Shaila Afrin.
Case Title:
The State of West Bengal v Susanta Chowdhury
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