Bombay high court upholds life sentence for Sajjad Mughal in Pallavi Purkayastha murder case

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Monday upheld the 2014 conviction and life sentence awarded to Sajjad Mughal, alias Sajjad Pathan, who, as a building security guard, was found guilty of entering the rental Wadala flat of Mumbai lawyer Pallavi Purkayastha, 25, on August 9, 2012, and murdering her.

The trial court, however, directed that the life term would be for the remainder of his life. The HC division bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Neela Gokhale confirmed that the life sentence would mean for the rest of his natural life.Pathan was 25 when arrested. He filed an appeal against his conviction, while the State of Maharashtra initially filed an appeal to enhance the punishment from a life sentence to a death sentence.

Atanu Purkayastha, Pallavi’s IAS officer father, petitioned the HC in 2022 to seek enhancement of punishment as well, to a death sentence for his daughter’s murder. The HC issued notice to Pathan in September 2022 on her father’s plea.An FIR was registered at the Wadala Truck Terminal police station in the case, and Pathan was arrested on August 10, 2012. The case was later transferred to the Crime Branch. Special Trial Court Judge Vrushali Joshi at the Sessions Court in Mumbai convicted Pathan in 2014 for murder, molestation, and criminal trespassing.

However, while special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam sought the maximum penalty of a noose, the trial court, after hearing defence advocate Wahab Khan, said it was ‘not the rarest of rare’ and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The HC heard special counsel Manoj Mohite for the State and Yug Chaudhry for Pathan, as well as advocate Abhishek Yende for the father, before closing the appeals for orders on August 14 and pronouncing the judgment on Monday.

The father argued that the sentence awarded by the sessions court was not proportionate to the “heinousness of the gruesome murder.” His application for revision of the sentence stated, “The past conduct and behaviour of the accused clearly depict the motive for the commission of this heinous and brutal murder.

” “His own statements point out his lustful intentions towards the deceased victim. The accused abused his position of trust, made sure the victim was alone, and then designed a plan to sexually assault the victim and then murder her,” it added.Pathan, while serving the life sentence for the murder, was granted a 30-day parole in February 2016 on grounds of his mother’s ill health, but he never returned to Nashik Central Jail, where he was lodged since his conviction in July 2014. The Mumbai Crime Branch finally found him in 2017 in J&K. The prosecution case was that the watchman entered the flat with stolen keys, and when she resisted him when he came on to her while she was sleeping, he slashed her throat with a knife, leaving her to bleed to death.