Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 15: Additional Sessions Judge Rajouri, Khalil Choudhary today awarded life imprisonment in a murder case.
According to the police case, on August 21, 2011 a complaint was lodged with Kalakote Police that one Prem Singh was murdered by one Raj Kumar as they were inimical with each other since long.
Accordingly, a case was registered under Section 302 RPC and after completion of investigation challan was presented in the court of law.
After hearing Additional Public Prosecutor for the accused and Advocate H N Mirza, Additional Sessions Judge Rajouri, Khalil Choudhary observed, “it is true that innocent life has been lost and accused is squarely responsible for the death of the deceased but there are certain norms which govern the imposition of sentence”.
“Protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity is the object of law, which must be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence. The nature of the crime committed and the manner in which, it was committed can be decisive factors to decide as to whether corrective measures should be adopted or a deterrence based approach would be befitting”, the court said, adding “the criminal law adheres in general to the principles of proportionality for prescribing the punishment according to the culpability of each kind of criminal conduct”.
“The question is whether the murder of deceased committed by accused would fall within the category of rarest of rare cases or not. The facts and the evidence do not suggest that it was a diabolical murder. Murder by itself is a serious crime but the manner in which it was committed and the motive behind the murder do indicate that it would not fall within the rare category of the cases”, the court said, adding “the accused does not have any previous criminal record so keeping in view his age, the manner in which the murder was committed by him and all other factors, he does not deserve the extreme penalty of death”.
Taking all factors in view, the court awarded simple imprisonment for life and fine of Rs 5000 for commission of the offence under Section 302 RPC to Raj Kumar. “In case of default in payment of the fine, the accused would undergo a further imprisonment for a period of one month”, the court directed.
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