The Supreme Court reduced the Delhi High Court’s death sentence handed down to law student Priyadarshini Mattoo’s rape and murder convict Santosh Kumar to life imprisonment in today’s ruling in the 14-year old trial.
The apex court bench consisting of justices H S Bedi and C K Prasad upheld the conviction of Kumar but delivered a lesser punishment in a judgement it had reserved in July this year after Kumar has gone in appeal against the 2006 decision of the Delhi High Court.
Papers reported that bench held: “To our mind, certain things are in favour of appellant (Singh). We are converting the punishment of death sentence into the life imprisonment."
The Delhi High Court had held Kumar guilty of rape and murder of his classmate Mattoo in October 2006 and granted him capital punishment after his acquittal by the trial court in 1999.
An advocate and son of a former IPS officer Kumar had raped and killed the final year law student Mattoo in January 1996.
The Times of India has a chronology of events in the case.
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The judge in the matter has apparently stated "To our minds, the balance sheet is slightly in favour of the appellant and therefore we believe the ends of justice will be met if his death sentence is commuted to life."
Quite shocking.
Are you sure it s 2006.... to my knowledge, trial court acquitted santosh kumar in 1999. Then how come he committed a crime in 2006. Please check
[You are correct, it was of course 1996, thank you for pointing out the unintentional error. -Ed]
Can anyone explain to readers why one miserable Bong sod, Dhananjay Chatterjee was fit case for rarest of rare.
Two weeks ago, in the US state of Virginia executed its first woman convict (teresa lewis) in about 100 years (and the first in the US since 2005) by lethal injection. Yes, the victims relatives got to watch, so also a select group from the press.
Her crime? Plotting to have her husband and stepson killed so that they could pocket the not so high insurance money (about 250K USD). Curiously, one of the guys who actually pulled the trigger and killed the two, got life sentence. The other no-hoper committed suicide in prison.
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