Supreme Court Sets Aside Death Sentence Of Man In 'Triple-Murder' Of Mother, Wife, Daughter

The High Court had called it a planned, cold-blooded murder of mother, wife and daughter by the man and had upheld death sentence.

The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the conviction and the death sentence awarded to a man for the alleged murder of his mother, wife and two-year-old daughter noting the case was based on circumstantial evidence. In the chilling triple murder case, the trial court had convicted Vishwajeet Kerba Masalkar for murdering his wife, mother and daughter. The Bombay High Court had uphled the conviction and death sentence calling it a rarest of rare case.

A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra and KV Viswanathan noted that the prosecution was unable to prove an unbroken chain of events.

"Since it is a case of circumstantial evidence where the prosecution has failed to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, we have allowed the appeal," the top court said.

The man was convicted under Sections 302, 307 and 201 of IPC and was sentenced to death by a trial court. Following which, Masalkar challenged the trial court conviction in the Bombay High Court.

The Bombay High Court confirmed the death penalty to Masalkar, and held that the case deserved to be treated as rarest of the rare case. The High Court had called it a planned, cold-blooded murder of mother, wife and daughter by Masalkar. The high court said that by finishing the family, the accused has tried to shatter the basic foundation of the society.

The case came up, when Masalkar, a facility executive with a Pune-based company reported to police a theft at his house, during which his mother, wife and daughter were killed and one of his neighbour was injured.

At the outset, the police filed a case on his complaint under Sections 302 and 397 of IPC. However, in the course of investigation, the police found that theft no theft of gold ornaments or cash took place from the house, nor was there any forcible entry. According to the police, the gold ornaments alleged to have been stolen were discovered hidden behind a photo frame in the house.

The police later told the court that initially it was misled by Masalkar to believe that deaths occured during a theft at his house. But, later the investigation revealed that Masalkar was having an extramarital affair. The police suspected Masalkar and arrested him for tripple murder and injuring the neighbour to silence him.