Apex court gives breather to rapist, turned captial punishment into 7 year jail term

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today commuted the capital punishment awarded by the Kerala High Court to lone convict, Govindachamy, to seven years' jail sentence in the rape and murder of Soumya, a 23-year-old woman, who was brutally assaulted and pushed off a train while she was travelling from Ernakulam to Shoranur, around five years ago.

After hearing from both the sides -- prosecution and defence --, a three-judge bench, headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, and also comprising Justices Uday Umesh Lalit and Prafulla C Pant, set aside the death penalty and sentenced Govindachamy to seven years of jail. The Top Court upheld the charges against Govindachamy under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 376 (Punishment for rape), 394 (Voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery) and 325 (Punishment for voluntarily causing grievous hurt).

Govindachamy's defence in the court was that he has no connection with the incident and that he was falsely implicated in the case. On December 17, 2013, a division bench of the Kerala High Court, had confirmed and upheld the death sentence awarded to Govindachamy, by the Thrissur fast track court. Govindachamy, a resident from Virudanagar in Tamil Nadu, was the lone convict in the Soumya murder case, according to the prosecution. It further alleged that the brutal incident took place when Soumya, an employee of a Kochi shopping mall, was travelling in a ladies compartment on the Ernakulam-Shoranur passenger train on February 1, 2011 and was attacked and pushed off from the slow-moving train by Govindachamy.

Soumya succumbed to her injuries on February 6 at a government hospital. Setting aside the death sentence of the Kerala High Court and the Thrissur fast track court, the three-judge bench ruled that the prosecution had failed to establish the murder charges beyond reasonable doubts against Govindachamy, and 'thereby we only held him guilty for rape and other charges and accordingly we sentenced him to seven years of jail.' Soumya, a 23-year-old employee at a shopping mall in Kochi, was raped by Govindachamy and pushed out of a running passenger train while she was travelling from Ernakulam to Shoranur on February 1, 2011. (UNI)