HC upholds man’s life term for kidnapping and murdering child for ransom

The Delhi High Court has upheld the life imprisonment awarded to a man for kidnapping a 10-year-old child for ransom and murdering him after getting money, saying the modus operandi adopted by the convict was ''diabolical''.

The high court, after examining the evidence and contention of the parties, said the guilt of appellant Sidharth Jeitley has been proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution.

A bench of Justices Mukta Gupta and Anish Dayal said there was clearly a deliberate attempt to mislead the parents of the child and those assisting them to different locations to ensure whoever comes in his way was sufficiently distracted.

The high court dismissed the appeal filed by Jeitley challenging his conviction and life imprisonment awarded by the trial court for the offences of kidnapping for ransom and murder that took place in October 2007. The trial court had also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on the convict.

"The modus operandi adopted by the appellant (Jeitley) was clearly diabolical considering that he picked up the child of a known family from the residential society at specific point of time which was known to him and then while demanding ransom murdered the child and pursuant to that misled the parents, ensured that someone would deliver the ransom amount to him, and thereafter disposed of not only the SIM which was being used for ransom but also the mobile handset in/near the Yamuna river," the bench said.

In October 2007, the minor boy's father lodged a complaint at Prashant Vihar Police Station that his son was kidnapped. Initially, the kidnapper demanded Rs 1.5 crore but later the ransom was finalised at Rs 33 lakh.

According to the prosecution, the child was kidnapped by Jeitley, who was known to the victim's family, when he was returning home from school on October 15, 2007.

The child was dropped by the school bus at the gate of the society in Rohini where he was residing. He was kidnapped after he entered the housing comples.

The kidnapper made ransom calls to the child's father and said while he would receive the money in Delhi, the boy will be handed over to the family in Meerut, it had said.

After analysing the call detail records and IMEI numbers of the mobile phone and the recorded conversation, the police arrested the accused from his house in Old Rajinder Nagar and the ransom money was recovered from his bedroom.

The next day, at the instance of the accused, the police recovered the child's body from bushes near a village in Sonipat's Murthal area.

The man challenged the trial court's verdict contending that the entire case was based on circumstantial evidence and the lower court ignored many broken links and unexplained circumstances leading to the order of conviction and sentence.

The high court, however, said, "This court finds that the guilt of the appellant for the murder of the deceased has been proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution. Consequently, this court finds no error in the impugned judgment of conviction and order on sentence by the trial court. The appeal is accordingly dismissed." The high court said it was clear from the evidence on record that the appellant had procured a SIM in someone else's name and used it to make the ransom calls using an imitation voice, kidnapped the child and murdered him the same day on October 15, 2007.

It noted the convict left the child's body along the highway and threw his bag and other belongings at another location.

"He constructively misled the parents of the deceased by stating in his calls that he would be taking the boy to Muzaffarnagar/ Meerut and in fact did misdirect prosecution witness 20 (child's father) to come to Meerut to collect the child, which did not fructify even though he did go to Meerut along with another prosecution witness," the bench said.

The high court also rejected the convict's contention that his wife had been put through a lie detector test, was questioned, and that she had denied having any knowledge of the incident and found not to be lying.

''…. (this) cannot support the case of the prosecution in any manner, for the reason that it would be quite and totally possible that the wife had no knowledge of what her husband the appellant was conspiring to do in order to acquire money from illegal means of kidnapping," it said.