The court did not acquit Dhimar or disturb his convictions for murder, causing disappearance of evidence, criminal intimidation and aggravated penetrative sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Instead, it replaced the death penalty with life imprisonment for a minimum of 25 years, without remission.
What happened on March 1, 2023
According to the High Court record, the victim was two years and five months old. Her mother had been living with the family of Bhanu Dhimar, a friend of the woman's husband, who was in jail at the time.
On March 1, 2023, the mother put her daughter to sleep and left the house with Dhimar's wife, Pinky, to collect coal at Rajendra Colliery. The court record says the mother returned at around 11 p.m. and found the child unconscious on the floor with injuries.
The mother told investigators that Dhimar, who was allegedly intoxicated, said he had slapped the child because she was crying and had wanted to put her to sleep. The prosecution also alleged that he threatened the mother against reporting the incident and told her to say that the child had fallen from the bed.
The child was initially taken to the Community Health Centre at Budhar and subsequently referred to Medical College, Shahdol. She died during treatment on March 7, 2023.
Medical evidence became central to the case
The post-mortem examinations were conducted by Dr Amreen Khan and Dr Pawan A. Wankhede. The High Court record says the doctors found a skull fracture along with vaginal and anal injuries, and concluded that the death resulted from head injury combined with sexual assault.
However, the medical evidence also contained inconsistencies that became significant during the appeal.
An earlier medical examination had recorded injuries including an abrasion around the anal region but did not record evidence of sexual abuse. Another doctor, Dr Jagdish Kanash, initially stated that he had found no signs of sexual abuse. The High Court examined these discrepancies against the later post-mortem findings.
The Bench ultimately accepted the post-mortem evidence of the two forensic doctors and held that the evidence, considered as a whole, was sufficient to sustain Dhimar's convictions.
DNA evidence: what it did — and did not — establish
One of the more complicated aspects of the case was the forensic evidence.
The prosecution had recovered the victim's lower garment and a bedsheet from Dhimar's house after his arrest. DNA testing was subsequently conducted on material collected from the victim and on articles associated with the accused.
The High Court recorded that the victim's lower garment recovered from Dhimar matched the victim's own source samples. However, no male DNA profile was recovered from the garment, and the bedsheet recovered from Dhimar's house did not reveal the victim's DNA. The court specifically acknowledged that the DNA evidence was negative in relation to establishing a male DNA profile.
The conviction therefore did not rest on DNA identification of Dhimar. Instead, the High Court assessed the entire chain of circumstantial evidence, including the child's presence in Dhimar's house, the mother's evidence concerning his presence, the medical findings, the recovery of articles and the circumstances surrounding the incident.
A missing child witness
The judgment also highlights a potentially significant gap in the prosecution's case.
Dhimar's minor daughter had given a statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. According to the judgment, she indicated that she had seen her father slap the victim and throw her onto the floor. She also described the victim as bleeding.
But the child was not examined as a witness during the trial.
The High Court described her as an important potential eyewitness and observed that her examination could have provided greater clarity about what happened. The court also noted that her absence from the witness box meant the defence did not have an opportunity to cross-examine her.
This issue formed part of the High Court's broader examination of the evidence, although the Bench ultimately concluded that the remaining evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction.
The trial court had imposed the death penalty
The case was originally decided by the Special Judge under the POCSO Act at Budhar, Shahdol.
In its judgment dated January 13, 2026, the trial court convicted Dhimar under Sections 302, 201 and 506 Part II of the IPC, as well as Section 5(m)/6 of the POCSO Act, and imposed the death penalty.
The trial court treated the case as falling within the “rarest of rare” category, relying on the brutality of the offence, the age of the child, the allegation that the accused was in a position of custody over her and the alleged concealment of evidence.
Because a death sentence requires confirmation by the High Court, the matter came before the Jabalpur Bench along with appeals filed by the accused.
Why the High Court refused to confirm the death sentence
The crucial question before the High Court was not simply whether Dhimar had committed the offences. The Bench expressly separated conviction from sentencing.
It accepted that aggravated penetrative sexual assault had been proved and that Dhimar's convictions could not be interfered with. But for capital punishment, the court said it had to weigh the aggravating circumstances against mitigating circumstances under the Supreme Court's established “rarest of rare” doctrine.
The aggravating factors were stark:
- The victim was only two years and five months old.
- She was left in Dhimar's custody.
- The court found aggravated penetrative sexual assault proved.
- The child suffered a skull fracture.
- The court found evidence of concealment of evidence.
- The court also accepted criminal intimidation of the victim's mother.
But the Bench identified several mitigating circumstances.
Dhimar was 32 years old and had no previous criminal record. The court found no evidence that he was a professional or habitual offender or that he represented a continuing threat to society. His conduct while incarcerated had reportedly been normal, with no disciplinary violations recorded in the jail report.
The court also considered his poor economic circumstances, his work as a labourer, his wife and two minor children, and evidence that he had experienced social isolation after marrying outside his caste.
‘Possibility of reformation cannot be ruled out’
The Bench placed particular emphasis on the possibility of reformation and rehabilitation.
At 32, the court held, Dhimar could not automatically be regarded as beyond reform. His lack of previous criminal antecedents and his conduct in prison were relevant considerations.
The judges therefore concluded that he could not be regarded as a continuing menace to society requiring the ultimate punishment.
The court stressed that “human life is a precious gift of God” and concluded that the death penalty should not be imposed lightly where the possibility of rehabilitation remains.
The result was a sentence of life imprisonment for at least 25 years without remission.
What happened to the other accused?
The High Court's ruling also changed the position of the other accused in the case.
Rajkumar Dhimar and Pinky Dhimar, who had been convicted by the trial court under Section 506 Part II of the IPC, were acquitted by the High Court.
The Bench noted that the FIR did not contain allegations of threats by them and that the evidence did not establish their involvement in the intimidation or concealment of evidence. Their convictions were therefore set aside.
A fourth accused, Radheshyam alias Bitani Dhimar, had already been acquitted by the trial court of the substantive allegations, including sexual assault and murder. The High Court noted that neither the State nor the complainant had appealed against that acquittal.
A significant point about the headline
Some reports have referred to the victim as a three-year-old girl, but the High Court's sentencing analysis specifically records her age as two years and five months. The judgment elsewhere reproduces witness testimony referring to her as three years old, which likely explains the discrepancy in subsequent reporting. The more precise age used by the Bench when weighing aggravating circumstances was two years and five months.
The larger legal question
The ruling does not mean the High Court considered the crime minor or insufficiently serious. Quite the opposite: the Bench expressly upheld the finding of aggravated penetrative sexual assault and murder.
The dispute was about whether this particular offender should receive the death penalty.
Indian death-penalty jurisprudence requires courts to determine whether life imprisonment is inadequate and whether the case falls within the exceptionally narrow “rarest of rare” category. The High Court relied on Supreme Court precedents including Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab and Mukesh v. State (NCT of Delhi) while undertaking that exercise.
The Bench also referred to earlier cases in which the Supreme Court had commuted death sentences after considering factors such as age, the circumstantial nature of the evidence, lack of prior criminal history and the possibility of reform and rehabilitation.
What the judgment ultimately establishes
The August 31 ruling produces three distinct outcomes:
First, Ram Narayan alias Bhanu Dhimar remains convicted of murder, aggravated penetrative sexual assault, criminal intimidation and disappearance of evidence.
Second, his death sentence has been replaced with life imprisonment for a minimum of 25 years without remission.
Third, Rajkumar Dhimar and Pinky Dhimar have been acquitted by the High Court, while Radheshyam Dhimar's earlier acquittal remains undisturbed.
The judgment is therefore significant not because the court rejected the seriousness of sexual violence against a child, but because it illustrates the difficult boundary Indian courts draw between the gravity of an offence and the constitutional threshold for imposing capital punishment.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court ultimately concluded that, despite the extreme circumstances of the crime, the evidence of Dhimar's age, lack of previous criminal history, prison conduct, family responsibilities, socio-economic circumstances and potential for rehabilitation meant that the case did not cross that threshold.