A bench of justices S Muralidhar and Mukta Gupta upheld their conviction for the offence of murder, but reduced the punishment of Mohammed Saleem, Shaheen Zargam Ali, Sajid Wasim, Shabbir Kasim and Shaheen Abbas saying the case did not fall in the "rarest of rare category".
The high court also said that the incident was not one of honour killing as held by the trial court. The bench upheld their conviction and 10-year jail term awarded by the trial court for the attempted murder of the deceased's brother.
"In the considered view of the court, the present case is not one which can be termed as a rarest of rare case deserving the award of death penalty to any of the accused. For the aforementioned reasons, the court declines to confirm death sentence awarded to each of the accused. The impugned order on sentence is modified by sentencing each of the accused to life imprisonment...," it said.