Echoing the right of reformation for every prisoner, the Supreme Court has commuted the death sentence of four convicts, who had been found guilty of killing nine persons at Nandos village in Malwan in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district in 2003 after luring them with the false promise that their money could be doubled through black magic.
The four-- Santosh Manohar Chavhan, Amit Ashok Shinde, Yogesh Madhukar Chavhan and Mahesh Dhanaji Shinde-- were all undergraduate students at the time of committing the offence. A Bench headed by Chief Justice(CJI) P Sathasivam, which granted the remission said:“All the four accused were young(aged 23-29 years) at the time of commission of the offence. They belong to the economically, socially and educationally deprived section of the population.They were living in acute poverty.
“It is possible that, being young, they had a yearning for quick money and these circumstances had led to the commission of the crimes in question.”
The court also took notice of the fact that the accused had either completed theB A course or were on the verge of acquiring a degree.
Also, the quartet had participated in different programmes of Gandhian thought and were awarded certificates for their participation.