Punjab & Haryana HC Commutes Death Sentence To 30 Years Without Remission, Says Accused Not Beyond Reform

Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld the conviction of a woman for kidnapping and murdering a two-year-nine-month-old girl by burying her alive in a pit, but has declined to confirm the death sentence, commuting it to rigorous imprisonment for 30 years without remission.

A Division Bench of Justice Vinod S. Bhardwaj and Justice Ravinder Malik, in a judgment pronounced on 23.09.2026, decided together the death reference (MRC-3-2024) made by the Sessions Judge, Ludhiana, and the accused's appeal (CRA-D-824-2024). The Sessions Court had convicted Neelam under Sections 364, 302 and 201 of the IPC on 12.04.2024, and on 18.04.2024 sentenced her to death for murder, life imprisonment for kidnapping and seven years' rigorous imprisonment for causing disappearance of evidence.

According to the prosecution, the child went missing while playing in the street outside her home in Ludhiana at around 2:15 PM on 28.11.2021. An FIR for kidnapping was registered on her grandfather's statement, naming a neighbour. The accused was apprehended late that night and, in her disclosure, said she had buried the child in a pit in a vacant plot near Eldeco City on G.T. Road, out of resentment that the child's father, a police employee, could afford things for his children which she could not for her own.

Counsel for the accused argued that the case rested on circumstantial evidence with no unbroken chain. The defence pointed to the hospital record, which carried the child's name and particulars although the FIR was registered only around 7:15 PM, and argued that the shoes were left at the spot and later "recovered", and that the last-seen witness was planted. It also argued that the CCTV footage and call detail records were inadmissible for want of valid Section 65-B certificates, that the accused could not have dug a pit in ten minutes without a tool, that the motives attributed differed, and that no child witness was examined.

The Bench applied the five principles for circumstantial evidence laid down in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra. It accepted the doctors' explanation that the child's name and address were entered in the hospital documents later, and held that the FIR for kidnapping and the recovery of the child were two independent events within the same police station's jurisdiction. The police's conduct in leaving the shoes at the spot, when the child was rushed to hospital, was held neither suspicious nor unnatural.

On the evidence, the Court found an entire chain of witnesses who saw the child with the accused. CCTV footage showed the accused taking the child on her black Activa scooter at about 2:15 PM; a witness saw them near Jalandhar Bypass at about 2:30 PM; and the security guard, PW-8, saw the accused enter the vacant plot with the child at about 2:50 PM and leave alone after some ten minutes. The body was exhumed from the same plot around 3:50 PM. With so short a gap, the Court held, the accused was required under Section 106 of the Evidence Act to explain how she parted from the child, and her failure to do so in her Section 313 statement became an additional link in the chain.

Rejecting the challenge to the electronic evidence, the Bench noted that no objection to the mode of proof was taken at trial, which it called a curable defect that cannot be raised on appeal. It held that the certificates from PW-4 and PW-14 satisfied Section 65-B(4), no prescribed form being required, and that the footage clearly showed the faces of the accused and the child and, on zoom, the scooter's registration number. The call detail records matched the route. On the pit, the Court noted that the plot already had pits and the prosecution did not allege the accused dug one. Differing accounts of motive, it added, do not dislodge a case resting on circumstantial evidence. The appeal against conviction was dismissed.

On sentence, the Court referred to the Supreme Court's decisions on the "rarest of rare" doctrine, the need to consider the possibility of reformation, and Swamy Shraddananda, which allows a fixed term beyond ordinary life imprisonment. It took note of the accused's clean prison record, the absence of any psychopathology in the medical assessment, her socially disadvantaged background and her own children. Though the offence was gruesome, the Bench said "It cannot be held by this Court that the accused is beyond reform" or a threat to society at large.

The Court accordingly commuted the death sentence to rigorous imprisonment for 30 years, without remission, with a fine of Rs. 50,000 (one year's rigorous imprisonment in default). The sentences under Sections 364 and 201 IPC, with fines, were maintained, and all sentences will run concurrently.

Appearances:

For the State of Punjab: Mr. Mohit Kapoor, Sr. DAG, Punjab.

For the Accused: Mr. Amandeep Singh Rai and Ms. Sunaina Rani, Advocates.

For the Complainant: Mr. Atul Goyal, Advocate.

Amicus Curiae: Mr. A.D.S. Sukhija, Senior Advocate, with Ms. Mehak Sawhney, Mr. Sukhdeep Singh, Ms. Manjot Kaur and Mr. Vivek Chauhan, Advocates.

Case Title: State of Punjab vs. Neelam, MRC-3-2024, with Neelam vs. State of Punjab, CRA-D-824-2024