The Hindu : New Delhi News : Court converts murder case into culpable homicide

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 10, 2007
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New Delhi

Court converts murder case into culpable homicide

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has converted a murder case into one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and set free the accused by sentencing them to eight years' imprisonment which they have already undergone.

The case pertained to the Krishna Nagar police station in East Delhi. Accused Rakesh Kumar and Preet Kumar had stabbed a man to death when he objected to their teasing a woman at a restaurant in the area. The trial court had sentenced the two to life imprisonment.

Pronouncing the judgment on their appeal against the lower court judgment, the High Court said that looking into the nature and manner in which the offence was committed, it was manifest that the accused had come to the restaurant for dining, not with the intention to kill the victim.

"It is thus evident that there was a sudden fight between the convicts and the victim over the issue of teasing the lady and that it was not a premeditated fight,'' the Court ruled.

"Therefore, for these reasons we are of the view that the appellants committed offence punishable under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), not under 302 of the Indian Penal Code, and thus being so the conviction recorded against them is modified,'' the judgment said.

``The sentence prescribed for an offence punishable under Section 304 is 10 years. Since they have already undergone about eight years of sentence, we are of the view that end of justice shall be met if their sentence is reduced to the period already undergone. We sentence them for the period already undergone'', the Court said.

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