HC focuses on ‘transformative justice’, commutes death to life
Times of India | 1 September 2026
Kolkata: Every person guilty of commission of a grave offence can undergo transformation, Calcutta High Court’s Jalpaiguri circuit bench on Aug 28 observed while setting aside the death penalty awarded by a trial court to a north Bengal man for murdering his wife.
The division bench of Justices Shampa Sarkar and Smita Das De upheld the conviction of Sujit Dey Bhowmick but held that the case failed the ‘rarest of the rare’ test for him to be awarded the death penalty. The two-judge bench commuted the man’s death sentence to life imprisonment.
The case dates back to June 20, 2023. Sujit and his wife Mitali were in the bedroom of Mitali’s father’s house in Maynaguri. Their seven-year-old son was playing outside the room. Mitali’s mother and grandmother were in the kitchen preparing breakfast. At 10 am, they started fighting. Sujit, in a fit of rage, got an axe and attacked his wife. Hearing Mitali’s screams, her mother and grandmother rushed in to rescue her but they too were attacked by Sujit. All this took place in front of the seven-year-old and Mitali’s sister.
A Jalpaiguri judge sentenced Sujit to death for the murder of his wife and to life imprisonment with a Rs 1 lakh fine for attempting to murder his in-laws. When sentencing Sujit to death, the trial court tagged him a “demon” whose mind could not be changed even if he was given training and spiritual lectures in the correctional home.
“We do not agree to the death penalty. Every person guilty of commission of a grave offence can undergo transformation,” the division bench held while also stating that the trial judge did not call for any report from the state relating to Sujit’s conduct in custody and the mental condition, or prison conduct report.
Citing the information produced by the probation officer, the division bench noted that Sujit’s conduct was “satisfactory” and there was a “chance of reformation”; moreover, he was undergoing counselling. It was noted that he did not have any criminal antecedents. His minor son is good at studies and he was also responsible for his elderly mother.
The trial judge, while awarding the death penalty, stressed the Vedic mantras chanted by the spouses at the time of marriage and arrived at the conclusion that Sujit did not hesitate to murder his wife and “chose to forget the love, affection, contribution and sacrifice of his spouse; this was a rarest of ‘rare’ case to award death penalty.”
The division bench held: “The judge was required to record special reasons for awarding death penalty and we find that the special reasons recorded by the learned judge were entirely based on the rituals of a Hindu Marriage. The other factor which weighed heavily on the learned judge was that the victim was killed in her own father’s house in the presence of all her family members, which was indicative of extreme brutality and demonic nature of the appellant. We do not agree.”