Life-imprisonment awarded in murder case

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 29: Principal Sessions Judge Samba RN Wattal today awarded life imprisonment to Babu Ram alias Kala, who murdered one Shamsher Singh. However, court acquitted Veena Devi, wife of Shamsher Singh.
According to the police case, Babu Ram murdered Shamsher Singh as the accused was having illicit relationship with Veena Devi, wife of deceased.
After hearing both the sides, court observed, “evidence brought on record by the prosecution regarding complicity of accused Babu Ram in the murder of Shamsher Singh is convincing and beyond any shadow of doubt. However, the prosecution has miserably failed to prove complicity of accused Veena Devi in the commission of crime, same is doubtful, benefit of doubt as per criminal jurisprudence is given to the accused Veena Devi who is acquitted of the charge and her bail bonds stand discharged”.
“The crime here is the murder of an innocent person, particularly heinous crime, a crime against humanity. The penal statute has prescribed punishment for offence of murder for life or capital punishment and to view such offences once proved lightly is itself an afferent to humanity”, Principal Sessions Judge said, adding “though there is discretion to court to award a less sentence than minimum, adequate and special reasons decide the discretion”.
“The discretionary power cannot be used indiscriminately or routinely. Same has to be used sparingly in cases where special facts and circumstances justify a reduction. The justifiable reason given by the accused for reduction in sentence or pardon him is that convict is a young man and has children to be maintained by him and he is the only bread earner of his family”, the court observed, adding “the convict is not a professional criminal and there is no criminal history at his past”.
“As a young man, his mind has been perverted and was having an extra marital affair. No ground has been put forth before me, which would warrant imposing extreme penalty on the convict. There are only two types of punishment for offence under Section 302 RPC—-life Imprisonment or death penalty. Death sentence can be imposed only on rarest of the rare case and case in hand does not fall in the category of rarest of rare case”, Principal Sessions Judge said.
Accordingly, court awarded life imprisonment for the commission of offence under Section 302 of RPC subject to the confirmation from the High Court.