The Delhi High Court has commuted the life imprisonment awarded to man and his son for killing their neighbour more than two decades ago to the sentence already undergone saying they had no common intention to kill the victim following a quarrel over wall construction.
Modifying the charge of murder (section 302 of IPC) to the charge of causing grievous injury (326 of IPC) against Darshan Singh and his son Kanwaljeet, a bench of justices Kailash Gambhir and Indermeet Kaur said their sentence period till today will be considered as "sentence undergone" for the offence.
The prime accused Avneet, another son of Singh, had died during the trial.
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Referring to Supreme Court judgments, the bench said "So far as appellant 1 (Singh) and appellant 2 (Kanwaljeet) are concerned, there is nothing proved on record by the prosecution that they had any common intention to kill the deceased or that they had any previous knowledge of the fact that the accused was carrying a dagger with him.
"Merely by uttering words like 'bach ke na jaane pave' (do not let him escape), it cannot be concluded that the appellants were having a common intention with accused to cause death of the" victim.
"The trial court's (August 1998) order... Is modified to the extent that the appellants are convicted under section 326 read with section 34 IPC and accordingly the sentence of life imprisonment imposed upon them by the trial court is converted to the sentence of the period already undergone by them."
According to the prosecution, on September 17, 1991 the accused had got into a quarrel with Sahib Ditta Mal and his son Naresh over getting a wall of Mal's house constructed in Geeta Colony.
During the quarrel accused Avneet had stabbed Naresh with a knife, who succumbed to injuries on the same evening.
