HC suspends life sentences of woman & her lover convicted for murder of her 10-year-old son

Kolhapur: Bombay high court’s Kolhapur bench suspended the life imprisonment sentences of two convicts — Ashwini Chavan, 29, and Sachin Kumbhar, 41 — until the criminal appeals filed by them challenging their conviction in the murder of Chavan’s 10-year-old son were finally disposed of.The bench of Justices Milind N Jadhav and Nandesh S Deshpande passed the order on July 3 while allowing their interim applications seeking suspension of the sentences.Chavan and Kumbhar, co-workers at a company near Wai in Satara district, were arrested on May 8, 2019, for the alleged murder of Chavan’s son, Gaurav, by pushing him into a canal of Dhom dam on the night of April 28. His lifeless body was found floating in the waters the next day, a few kilometres from Navechi Wadi, where the crime was said to have been committed.

A missing complaint was registered by the boy’s father.The Satara police said Chavan and Kumbhar had an illicit affair and that her son got to know about it and even caught them in an objectionable position, after which he started disliking both, and said he would tell someone about the affair.. The police alleged the two planned the murder on the night of the village fair so that no one would notice. According to the prosecution case, the mother took Gaurav on her scooty to the canal side where Kumbhar was waiting, and he pushed the child into the canal.

Doctors declared that Gaurav died by asphyxia due to drowning and also reported marks of injuries possibly caused by dragging or pushing.The case was tried before additional sessions judge of Wai Justice R N Mehare, who sentenced both to rigorous imprisonment for life for murder and rigorous imprisonment for five years for kidnapping, with both punishments to be observed concurrently, on Jan 30, 2025. They separately challenged the conviction and sentencing."What we find on reading the judgement and order on conviction is that the evidence led by the prosecution is circumstantial and not direct. Most importantly, the motive of the crime stands prima facie defeated when the witness action of PW-5, i.e., husband of accused No 1 (Ashwini Chavan), is perused, wherein he categorically states that he was aware of the extra-marital affair between the two accused persons. In that view of the matter, the prosecution theory becomes somewhat weak; however, that will undoubtedly be decided by us when we hear the criminal appeals, which have been filed in 2025, and there is very little chance that the said appeals will be decided immediately in the near future," stated the judges.The two-judge bench made it mandatory for both the accused to report to the trial court on the first Monday of every six months commencing from Aug 2026.