Overview
- Additional Sessions Judge Sumit G. Joshi convicted Ramchandra Shehu Chavan of murder and sentenced him to life in prison with a ₹5,000 fine.
- The court also found him guilty of wrongful confinement and a state weapons violation, and it acquitted him of destroying evidence and cruelty charges.
- Prosecutors built the case on multiple eyewitnesses, a mobile video of Chavan carrying the severed head, traffic police testimony about his roadside admission, and a post-mortem that logged 26 ante-mortem injuries consistent with an axe.
- The killing took place on October 9, 2015, near Katraj in Pune, where the watchman lived with his family, and witnesses saw him walk on a public road holding the head and the blood-stained axe.
- The defence argued false implication and an unproven motive, and the court noted motive was not proved yet held the evidence sufficient, closing a case that was registered in 2016 and advanced after evidence was filed in 2021; Chavan remains in custody with jail time since 2015 set off against his sentence.