The Supreme Court commuted Ramesh N Naika’s death sentence to life imprisonment for murdering his two children, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive evaluation of his actions.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has spared the life of Ramesh N Naika, a former Punjab National Bank manager, who was convicted of murdering his two children, but directed that he must remain in prison till the end of his natural life without remission.
Naika was angry with his wife—also a bank employee—and her family because of his sister-in-law’s love affair with a colleague from another caste. In a barbaric act, he murdered his mother-in-law and sister-in-law before drowning his own children, Master Bhuvanraj (10) and Miss Krithika (3.5), in a tank in Mangalore.
After committing these crimes, he called his wife and asked her to end her life too. He was separately tried and convicted for the murders of his sister-in-law and mother-in-law.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol, and Sandeep Mehta upheld Naika’s conviction but commuted his death sentence, ruling that he should remain imprisoned for life without the possibility of release.
“When the sentence of death is imposed, it should only be imposed if the same is possible, even after an objective consideration of all the factors in favor of the person accused of having committed the offence, which was not done properly,”
the bench stated in its recent judgment.
The Supreme Court’s decision partially allowed Naika’s appeal against the 2017 Karnataka High Court judgment, which had upheld the 2013 death sentence issued by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, Dakshina Kannada.
The bench made it clear that their decision should not be mistaken for leniency.
“We should not even for a moment be taken to understand that the barbarity of the crime, the helplessness of the two children who met the most unfortunate of ends, and that too at the hands of the very person who bore half the responsibility of bringing them into the world, has escaped us, or we, in any way have condoned such a hideous act, done by the appellant-convict,”
Justice Karol wrote in the judgment.
The court acknowledged mitigating factors, including the absence of prior criminal records and Naika’s otherwise good relations with the deceased family members.
“We direct that the hangman’s noose be taken off the appellant-convict’s neck, and instead that he remains in prison till the end of his days given by God Almighty,”
the bench ruled.
The court reaffirmed that his mother-in-law and sister-in-law were also innocent victims, and he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life.
The court also made a broader observation:
“Whom a person falls in love with is not within the human sphere of control.”
While Naika had helped his sister-in-law get a job out of family affection, his expectation that his word be treated as absolute authority was unjustified and led to a tragic chain of violence.
“It is sad that such a restrictive world-view on part of the appellant-convict became the reason for these senseless acts of violence and depravity,”
the bench concluded.
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