the court was - The Supreme Court Of India.
The bench – Consisted of, Justice VS Sirpurkar, & justice Deepak Verma.
• Prabhu Nochil, husband of Sushma Tiwari, was murdered by Sushma's brother, Dilip Tiwari and two of his friends - Sunil Yadav and Manoj Paswan. Dilip and his associates killed not only Prabhu Nochil but also Prabhu’s father Krishnan Nochil, and two others Bijith & Abhayraj. Prabhu Nochil & Sushma Tiwari was neighbours and a love existed between them. Sushma married Prabhu, against her family’s concent. Prabhu, was Malayali and non bramhin. As a result of that, Dilip and his associates killed Prabhu & others and injuried seriously to Prabhu's sister Deepa and mother Indira- who passed away.
• A fast track court, consisted by justice A B Mahajan, sentenced, Dilip, Sunil, & Manoj by death penalty. Observation of the judge was – ‘murders committed in cold blood’ & the case is a "rarest of rare" one. The crime was systematically planned and brutally executed.
• Sushma expressed her satisfaction on the judgment of death sentence awarded by her brother – who killed her love as well as her husband - Prabhu.
• The death penalty confirmed by The High Court of Mumbai.
• Thereafter the case reached to Honorable The Supreme court. The bench consisted of, Justice V S Sirpurkar & justice Deepak Verma. The Supreme Court changed the punishment from death to life imprisonment.
Observation and some of the comments of the Honorable judges of The Supreme Court, were –
1) It was not a rarest of the rare case.
2) The case was a case of “caste crime”
3) “If he the girl’s brother Dilip became victim of his wrong but genuine caste considerations, it would not justify the death sentence”.
4) “The murders were the outcome of a social issue like a marriage with a person of so-called lower caste. However, time has come when we have to consider these social issues relevant while considering death sentence in such circumstances”.
5) "Sushma was the younger sister of this accused (Dilip). It is a common experience that when the younger sister does something unusual--and in this case it was an intercaste, intercommunity marriage out of the secret love affair--then in the society it is the elder brother who justifiably or otherwise is held responsible for not stopping such affair.
6) "The caste is a concept which grips a person before his birth and does not leave him even after his death. The vicious grip of caste, community, religion, though totally unjustified, is a stark reality”.
7) "The psyche of the offender in the background of a social issue like an inter-caste-community marriage, though wholly unjustified, would have to be considered in the peculiar circumstances of this case,"
8) Dilip had carried out the act as he felt humiliated by the action of his younger sister getting married to a so-called lower caste man.
9) "It is held as the family's defeat. At times, he has to suffer taunts and snide remarks even from persons who really have no business to poke their nose into the affairs of the family. Dilip, therefore, must have been a prey of the so-called insult which his younger sister had imposed upon his family and that must have been in his mind for seven long months,"
10) "This was further aggravated because of the so-called higher status of a Brahmin family on the part of Dilip and so- called non-Brahmin status of Prabhu.
11) According to the apex court, the love affair, which went on between Sushma and Prabhu for which Abhayraj acted as a messenger, must have raised Dilip's feeling of being cheated by Prabhu.
12) The bench said all murders are foul but the degree of brutality, depravity and diabolic nature differ in each case and there cannot be a straight jacket formula for deciding upon the circumstances under which the death penalty is a must.
13) "In a death sentence matter, it is not only the nature of the crime but the background of the criminal, his psychology, his soccial conditions and his mindset for committing the offence are also relevant,"the apex court said citing its earlier reasoning adopted in the Bachan Singh case.
14) Citing the Bachan Singh case, the apex court said the principle is that the court should not confine its consideration principally or merely to the circumstances connected with the particular crime but also give due consideration to the circumstances of the criminal.
• "It is because of this that we have ventured to consider the mindset of accused No.1 Dilip and the vicious caste grip that might have provoked the crime committed by him.
• "However, in the peculiar circumstances of this case, mere life imprisonment which is capable of resulting into 20 years of imprisonment or 14 years of actual imprisonment may not be adequate punishment for these accused persons, "the bench said.
• Hence, the apex court said that in the overall circumstances, it would be appropriate that Dilip and Manoj, who assaulted Krishnan, Prabhu and the two helpless ladies, would deserve the life imprisonment.
• "But we direct that they shall not be released unless they complete 25 years of actual imprisonment. In case of Sunil, (third accused) however, since he had not assaulted the helpless ladies nor had he taken part in the assault on Krishnan, he deserves life imprisonment in ordinary sense. He shall have to undergo the 20 years of actual punishment," the bench said in its judgement. ==PTI
• In other words, the court classified the shameful caste-based honour killings as different from other homicides in which the maximum punishment of death can be awarded.
• The Supreme Court also examined the psychology of the killers, including the brother of the girl who stepped out of her caste to marry a Keralite. It said,
• Though agreeing that the killings were gruesome, the apex court said Dilip had carried out the act as he felt humiliated by the action of his younger sister getting married to a so-called lower caste man.
• The Supreme Court took a lenient view that the main perpetrator of the crime was a victim of the "vicious grip of caste".
• The court showed a peculiar leniency & flexibility in this case, and glorify the caste-ism, against the intention, & will of the Constitution.
• A criminal may have some wrong conception on caste-ism, but that cannot be a good cause for lower amount of punishment to him.
• Khap Panchayets are gaining grounds from the conclusion of this case.
Posted by Arup Kumar Gupta
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