February 26, 2010
Nearly 14 years after a man was strangled to death by his wife, the Delhi High Court on Friday awarded her life imprisonment while the alleged contract killer was let off for want of conclusive proof.
Kiran Mehlawat and Surinder Singh were sentenced to life term by the trial court in 2001 for murdering Pratap Singh, a retired army Major, in Sainik Vihar locality.
Both the convicts had approached High Court challenging the trial court's order on the ground that a material witness was not examined by the prosecution and that the motive for the murder was not established.
However, a bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Suresh Kait rejected the contention saying neither non-examination of the deceased's mother, alleged to be material witness, nor the absence of motive was fatal to the prosecution's case.
"Kiran is convicted of the offences of committing the murder of the deceased. We maintain the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to accused Kiran by the trial court," the bench said while acquitting Surinder for lack of evidence.
The bench also said the conduct of the convict in misleading the probe agency by stating that robbery had been committed at her house was suggestive of her guilty mind.
"The fact of the matter is that accused Kiran tried to mislead the police by falsely stating that a robbery had been committed in the house in question on the day of the murder of the deceased.
No comments:
Post a Comment