Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 12: Principal Sessions Judge Rajouri RN Wattal today awarded life-imprisonment to one Mir Hussain in a murder case.
As per the case, on 11.10.2013, complainant Abdul Hamid, son of Mohd Sadiq of Chowkian Nagrota moved an application before SHO, Police Station, Rajouri, with the averments that he had gone to Godhar with his cattle for grazing; his brother, who is employed in CISF and posted at Mumbai and his wife and their children are alone residing in the house of his brother, had to give the sacrifice of goat and had kept one goat in the house of Mir Hussain, son of Mohd Naseem of Kote Dhara.
On 10.10.2013, the complainant’s sister-in-law Marida Begum sent her son Umar Rehman, son of Abdul Rehman to see the goat kept in the house of Mir Hussain; Umar Rehman stayed in the house of Mir Hussain and at 12:45 PM, he came to know that Umar Rehman, complainant’s nephew, has been killed with nefarious design and criminal intention and corpse of Umar Rehman is hanging from a tree at Kote Dhara Morha Tata Pani. Accordingly, a case was registered.
After hearing both the sides, the court observed, “crime here is the murder of an innocent minor child, 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”.
“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 cautiously in cases where special facts and circumstances justify a reduction”, the court said, adding “the justifiable reason given by the accused/convict for reduction in sentence or pardon him is that convict is a young man and has family to be maintained by him and he is the only bread earner of his family”.
“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 cases and case in hand does not fall in the category of rarest of rare case”, the court said.
“The convict is, as such, sentenced to undergo life imprisonment for the commission of offence under Section 302 of RPC, subject to confirmation from the High Court”, the court said.
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