The Punjab and Haryana High Court has dismissed a plea filed by Sanji Ram, the main accused in the 2018 Kathua rape and murder case, seeking suspension of his life sentence. The court said he does not deserve this relief at this stage.
Sanji Ram, a former caretaker of the temple where the crime took place in January 2018, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Pathankot in 2019. His nephew Parvesh Kumar and special police officer Deepak Khajuria were also awarded life sentences.
A division bench of Justices Gurvinder Singh Gill and Ramesh Kumari passed the order on March 6. The three-page order was made public earlier this week.
Without going into the merits of the case, the court said it believes this is not a case where the applicant deserves suspension of sentence at this stage. “The application, as such, is dismissed,” the court said.
At the same time, the court directed its registry to list Ram’s main appeal against his conviction for final hearing in September this year. It noted that he has already spent a significant period in custody.
As per a 15-page chargesheet filed by the Jammu and Kashmir crime branch in April 2018, an eight-year-old nomadic girl was abducted on January 10 that year. She was held captive in a small village temple in Kathua, where Ram was the caretaker. The chargesheet said the girl was kept sedated for four days and repeatedly raped before being bludgeoned to death.
Arguing for suspension of the sentence, senior advocate Vinod Ghai told the court that the prosecution had examined 114 witnesses but failed to produce concrete evidence linking Ram to the crime. He also argued that Ram has already spent more than eight years in jail and should be granted suspension of sentence.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir was represented by senior advocate R S Cheema, while advocates Mandeep Singh Basra and Anupinder Brar appeared for the victim’s family.
Cheema described the brutal nature of the crime and said the testimonies of witnesses and the evidence on record clearly establish the involvement of the accused.
“It has been submitted that since upon findings of guilt having been recorded by the trial court, the presumption of innocence of the applicant is no longer available to him, the applicant does not deserve to be released on bail," he said.
The Pathankot sessions court had also sentenced three police personnel to five years in prison for attempting to cover up the crime and destroying evidence. Ram’s son Vishal was acquitted.
In June 2019, then sessions judge Tejwinder Singh said, “In the present case, facts are many but truth is one that under a criminal conspiracy, an innocent eight-year-old minor girl has been kidnapped, wrongfully confined, drugged, raped and ultimately murdered. The perpetrators of this crime have acted in such a manner as if there is a 'law of jungle' prevalent in the society."
The judge summed up the enormity of the crime with a couplet by Mirza Ghalib: "Pinha tha daam-e-sakht qareeb ashiyaan ke, udhne hi nahi paye the ki girftar hum hue" (hunters had placed the net near a nest and the young one was caught before it could take its first flight).
In his detailed 432-page judgment, the judge called the crime “devilish and monstrous” and said it was carried out in a deeply shameful, inhumane, and barbaric manner. He stressed that justice must be delivered.
After initial delays and controversies, the case, which sparked nationwide outrage, was handed over to the crime branch for investigation, which later uncovered the conspiracy.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ordered that the trial be shifted out of Jammu and Kashmir. It directed the sessions court in Pathankot to conduct day-to-day hearings in the case.
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