Supreme Court commutes death sentence of police constable

The Supreme Court has commuted the death sentence awarded to a police constable for murdering his wife and two daughters to life imprisonment with a direction that the convict must spend at least 30 years behind the bars.
A bench of Justices Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya and Dipak Misra commuted the death sentence given to Amar Singh Yadav and said the capital punishment in the case is unwarranted as the case does not fall in the "rarest of the rare" category..
"Taking into (consideration) the facts and circumstances of the case in hand and reasons stated above, we hold that the imposition of death sentence on the accused Amar Singh Yadav was not warranted. Accordingly, we commute the sentence to life imprisonment," the bench said.

"Further, we hold that the accused Amar Singh Yadav must serve a minimum of 30 years in jail without remissions before consideration of his case for premature release," it said.
According to the prosecution, Amar Singh Yadav, who was posted as a constable in Kanpur, was married to Urmila and had four children. But he developed illicit relationship with two other women.
The illicit relationship resulted in Yadav fighting regularly with his wife. One day, he took his wife and four children in a Maruti van on the pretext of shopping and set the vehicle ablaze with intention of burning all occupants.

His wife and her two daughters succumbed to their injuries in hospital.

The sessions court had held Yadav guilty of the offences and sentenced him to death.
The Allahabad High Court upheld the conviction and the death sentence of Yadav.
The apex court, while commuting the death sentence, said "there is no reason to believe that the accused cannot be reformed or rehabilitated and that he is likely to continue criminal acts of violence as would constitute a continuing threat to the society.