HC upholds life term of couple for killing youth in 1993

The Delhi High Court today upheld the conviction and life term awarded to a couple in connection with the murder of a youth whose younger brother had misbehaved with their daughter in February, 1993.
A bench of justices Pratibha Rani and Reva Khetrapal has asked convicts Sunita Sharma and her husband Sudhir, who had challenged the lower court verdict in 1998, to surrender within 15 days to serve remaining sentence in the case.
The court rejected the plea of the couple that there were variations in the testimonies of key witnesses.
"No doubt, there are some variations in the statements of prosecution witnesses and the investigating officer as to when the complainant made the statement or where it was recorded but the variations are negligible.

"Taking note of the state of mind of PWs i.E. PW-2 Kuldeep Raj and PW-5 Chanchal Rani- parents of the deceased and the condition of injured Pawan who was admitted in the hospital and was opined as 'unfit to make statement', we concur with the observations of trial court...," the bench said.
It said there was a motive for the offence as the couple was peeved with the alleged misbehaviour of victim's brother.

"So far as the contention that there was no motive for the Appellants to commit the crime is concerned, we find that the appellants had a grudge against the complainant's son on account of some misbehaviour by younger son of the complainant with daughter of the appellants...," it said.

The court, however, said even in the absence of motive, an accused can be convicted if direct evidence establishes the crime. "Therefore, in case there is direct trustworthy evidence of witnesses as to commission of an offence, the motive part loses its significance."
The couple, residents of east Laxmi Nagar market here, had the grudge against one of the sons of their neighbour Kuldeep as he had misbehaved with their daughter on February 14, 1993.
A day after, the couple caught Raman, elder brother of the youth, in the evening hours, pinned him down and assaulted him with an iron 'musli'. He was declared dead in a hospital.

Pawan, a relative of the victim, also received injured in the incident.