The Punjab and Haryana High Court commuted the death sentence of Jile Singh, a Palwal man, to 30 years of rigorous imprisonment for repeatedly raping his 17-year-old daughter over four years, resulting in her pregnancy. The court ruled the crime, though heinous, does not meet the Supreme Court’s “rarest of rare” criteria for capital punishment.
The Division Bench, comprising Justices Gurvinder Singh Gill and Jasjit Singh Bedi, upheld Singh’s conviction under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act for aggravated penetrative sexual assault and Section 506(II) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for criminal intimidation. The bench cited substantial and corroborated evidence, including medical records, the victim’s testimony, and DNA analysis, as the basis for upholding the trial court’s findings.
The survivor, a minor at the time the FIR was registered on October 2, 2020, gave a detailed statement describing repeated sexual abuse by her father after her mother’s death.
My father has been perpetrating physical excesses on me on a continuous basis and intimidated me with serious repercussions if I revealed it to anyone.Victim's statement
The abuse resulted in a pregnancy, and she gave birth to a daughter.
Singh’s defense claimed the allegations were fabricated due to the victim’s alleged affair with a scrap dealer, but the court rejected this argument, noting the survivor’s honesty about knowing the man lent her testimony more credibility rather than less.
In October 2023, a Palwal sessions court had sentenced Singh to death, citing the severity of the crime and the betrayal of paternal trust. However, the High Court referred to the Supreme Court’s landmark Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980) judgment, concluding that the case did not meet the “rarest of rare” threshold.
“It goes without saying that the accused having subjected his minor daughter to repeated penetrative sexual assault and having impregnated her has committed one of the most heinous crimes of the gravest form and would hardly call for any kind of leniency in the matter of sentence,” the High Court observed in its judgment.
The bench observed that the crime, though horrific, did not involve murder or broader public endangerment. It also noted Singh’s lack of prior criminal conduct and held that the possibility of reformation could not be ruled out. The court directed that the survivor be paid Rs. 10.5 lakh under the Haryana Victim Compensation Scheme, 2020.
The court’s decision to uphold the conviction was based on a strong body of evidence. The survivor’s statement, recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C., offered a consistent and detailed account of the abuse. Medical examinations conducted at Civil Hospital, Palwal, confirmed signs of sexual assault.
Crucially, DNA analysis by the Forensic Science Laboratory in Madhuban showed a conclusive match between Singh’s DNA and both the seminal stains found on the survivor’s clothes and the paternity of her child. These findings, taken together, left little room for reasonable doubt.
The High Court’s decision reflects recent trends in Supreme Court jurisprudence, where capital punishment is increasingly reserved for crimes involving irreversible societal damage. Cases like Pappu v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2022) and Kashi Nath Singh v. State of Jharkhand (2023) similarly involved rape convictions where the death sentence was commuted in the absence of murder or extreme brutality.
According to NCRB data, Haryana reported over 1,500 cases of child sexual abuse in 2024, placing it among states with high POCSO-related caseloads. The Jile Singh case is one of several high-profile instances where the courts have had to grapple with balancing justice for the survivor against the constitutional limits of capital punishment. The commutation reflects a cautious and precedent-aligned approach to the death penalty by the judiciary.
(Rh/Eth/Pooja Bansal/MSM/SE)