The review petition was filed by the two accused Mobarak Khan and Mofil Khan who was convicted in charge of the murder of eight persons in 2007. The trial court gave them capital punishment which was subsequently upheld by the Jharkhand High court. In 2014 they filed an appeal before the Supreme Court. The top court observed the case of murder in preplanned manner in which eight persons were killed in a barbaric manner which also includes children, infirm persons. The apex court held this case belongs from the category of rarest of rare cases in which the suitable punishment is the death penalty. The appeal was dismissed by the court.
Then the accused filed this review petition against the dismissal order of 2014 by the apex court.
The apex court while hearing the review petition takes note of the fact that the court hadn’t considered the chances of reform before awarding the death penalty.
Justice Nageswara Rao stated that it’s the duty of the state to procure evidence that there are no chances of reform and rehabilitation of the accused.
The court before awarding the death penalty was duty-bound to consider the factor that is there any possibility of reform and rehabilitation of the accused.
The court must take the account of the socio-economic condition of the accused before awarding the said punishment.
Although the act of murder of the entire family was brutally committed by the accused without any provocation. The court decided to commute the punishment of the accused from the death penalty to 30years.