New Delhi, January 08: The Supreme Court has held that in criminal cases punishment cannot be reduced merely because several years had lapsed due to long pendency of trial.
“After all, one young life was lost at the young age of 22 years. While considering the sentence, merely because the appeal pended and merely because the incident had taken place long back would not by itself justify any interference with the punishment, particularly when the punishment itself is lenient,” a bench of Justices V S Sirpurkar and Mukundakam Sharma said.
The bench made the remarks while dismissing the appeal of three persons convicted in a murder case nearly 27 years ago.
The trio Sunil Kumar, Tilak Singh and Ram Singh, along with Jageshwar and Munna, killed a youth Salim in Uttar Pradesh’s Jalaun district due to previous enmity.
The police, instead of charging the accused under Section 302 IPC(murder), slapped cases under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and other minor lesser offences.
A sessions court had convicted and sentenced the five to four years rigorous imprisonment and the Allahabad High Court confirmed the sentence in 2003, following which they appealed in the apex court. However, during the pendency of the appeal, Jageshwar and Munna died.
–PTI