SC commutes death penalty of convict in Amayur multiple murders case

A general view of Supreme Court in New Delhi.
| Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (April 22, 2025) commuted the death penalty of Reji Kumar in the Amayur multiple murder case in Kerala to imprisonment till the end of his life.

A three-judge Special Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta took into account mitigating factors like no prior antecedents of the convict, his good conduct for the past 16-17 years of incarceration, mental health issues and consistent efforts to be a model prisoner to remove him from the death row.

Forensic evidence

Kumar was found guilty of killing his wife and four children (three daughters and a son, aged between three and 12). Forensic evidence found that he had raped his eldest daughter.

Justice Karol began the 17-page judgment by introducing the case as that of a “husband and father who had forgotten all propriety, morality and responsibility toward his family members”.

“We are left to wonder as to how someone who is supposed to feel the utmost love, care and affection for the young lives could have come to commit such a crime by which the lights of these lives have been extinguished in the most brutal of manners,” Justice Karol wrote.

Kumar, an agricultural worker, had moved the Supreme Court after the Sessions Court sentenced him to death for multiple murders and rape. The prosecution had successfully made the case that Kumar repeatedly lied about the whereabouts of his missing family and had meticulously carried out the killings. The Kerala High Court had subsequently confirmed the death sentence.

Partly allowing his appeal by commuting the death penalty, Justice Karol said the severity of the crime had to be taken into consideration.

“Considering the severity of the crime, the number of persons killed, that out of five, four were his own children, we are of the view that he does not deserve to be set free and direct that he shall spend the remainder of his days in jail, till his last breath, hoping to do acts of penance to atone for the crimes he has committed and particularly for the fact that he extinguished four bright flames,” the Bench observed in the judgment.