Citation: State of Rajasthan v. Pintu Dagar, D.B. Criminal Death Reference No. 1/2026 (with Pintu Dagar v. State of Rajasthan, D.B. Criminal Appeal No. 304/2026), Rajasthan High Court, Jaipur Bench 2026:RJ-JP:37503-DB
The Rajasthan High Court has upheld a man’s conviction for murdering his wife and six-month-old son in Kota, but has refused to confirm his death sentence and has instead ordered life imprisonment until he turns 75, without remission.
When a crime takes place inside a home, and the prosecution proves that the accused was last with the victim, Section 106 of the Evidence Act requires him to explain how the injuries happened, and his silence is an additional link in the chain. Under Section 301 IPC, a person who intends to kill one person and in the process kills another is guilty of murder of the second person too. CCTV stills drawn from a pen drive need a Section 65B(4) certificate to be admissible. The death penalty is only for the “rarest of the rare” cases, where life imprisonment is clearly inadequate. Where the murder was not planned, no motive is proved and the mitigating factors, such as jail conduct and psychiatric reports, outweigh the aggravating ones, the High Court can impose a fixed term of life imprisonment without remission instead.
On the evening of 1 June 2021, the man, Pintu Dagar, his wife and their infant son had returned home from his wife’s relatives. Three eyewitnesses saw him dragging his blood-covered wife by the hair with an axe in his hand in front of a shop, and he ran away when the shopkeeper raised an alarm. The child was found with fatal wounds and died the next day. The Kota trial court sentenced him to death in January 2026, and the case came to the High Court as a death reference and his appeal. Justices Mahendar Kumar Goyal and Praveer Bhatnagar accepted that it was a circumstantial evidence case, but held the chain complete. The family had been seen together before the crime, the eyewitness accounts were not challenged in cross-examination, the axe was recovered from bushes on his disclosure, and his wife’s DNA matched his clothes and the axe. Since the crime happened inside the home, he also had to explain how the injuries occurred, under Section 106 of the Evidence Act, and he did not. For the child, the court presumed that he was in his mother’s lap when she was attacked, and held him guilty of murder under Section 302 read with Section 301 IPC (transfer of malice). The court rejected the arguments about the missing drag marks, the unproved source of the first phone call, and the open place of the axe recovery. It did hold that the trial court should not have relied on the CCTV still photographs, since there was no Section 65B(4) certificate, but this did not affect the rest of the evidence. On sentence, relying on the Supreme Court’s recent Aman Singh directions requiring reports on mitigating factors, the court disagreed with the trial court’s finding that the murder was planned and cold-blooded. It found no motive and said the couple had been happily married for about 15 years. His disadvantaged background, satisfactory jail conduct and a psychiatric report finding no mental illness weighed in his favour. Relying on the Mohinder Singh case, it said the case was not in the “rarest of the rare” category, despite his earlier conviction. It fixed a life sentence until age 75 without remission, using the special category recognised in Swamy Shraddananda and Navas, which only the High Courts and the Supreme Court may impose.