The SC has ruled that if a person kidnaps a child for ransom but looks after the minor well and does not threaten to kill or harm him to extract release money from his parents, he could not be sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 364A of IPC.
Analyzing the law and relevant judgments, a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and R Subhash Reddy on Monday stated that the essential ingredients to convict an accused under Section 364A which are required to be proved by the prosecution are as follows:- (i) Kidnapping or abduction of any person or keeping a person in detention after such kidnapping or abduction; and (ii) threatens to cause death or hurt to such person, or by his conduct gives rise to a reasonable apprehension that such person may be put to death or hurt or; (iii) causes hurt or death to such person to compel the Government or any foreign State or any Governmental organization or any other person to do or abstain from doing any act or from paying a ransom. Thus, referring to the stringent punishment of life or death sentence provided for convictions under Section 364A, the bench said that in addition to the first condition, either condition (ii) or (iii) has to be proved (against the accused), failing which conviction under Section 364A cannot be sustained.
A three-judge bench of the SC in August 2015 had upheld the constitutional validity of Section 364A, which was inserted in IPC in 1993 by parliament, keeping in view the increasing instances of kidnapping for ransom and killing of the hostages, especially by terror organizations.
In the case in hand, an auto driver had kidnapped a sixth class student of St Mary's High School, Secunderabad, on the pretext of dropping him home. He had taken the child to his home and demanded a ransom of INR 2 lakhs. The child was rescued by decoy policemen when the child's father went to pay the ransom money. In their deposition before the trial court, both the child and his father said that while the kidnapper treated the boy well, he never threatened to kill or harm the boy. But, the trial court and the High Court convicted the auto driver under Section 364A of IPC and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The auto driver challenged the sentence on the ground that there was no threat to the life of the hostage, and hence he could only be convicted under Section 363, which attracted a maximum punishment of seven years jail term.
The father, in his cross-examination, had stated that his son was not physically assaulted and did not complain to him about bad behaviour or assault.
Setting aside the conviction under Section 364A and life sentence, the bench of Justices Bhushan and Reddy stated that the appellant deserves to be sentenced with imprisonment of seven years and also liable to pay a fine of INR 5,000.
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