Ask India to reconsider

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-reposter: ask India to reconsider

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..........

Rick Halperin <rhalperi@P...> wrote:

 

March 4

 

INDIA:

 

In a rare instance, the Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence

awarded to 2 on charges of killing 3 children aged between 1 and 9 and

their parents on the basis of the evidence given by a 7-year- old who

survived the attack.

 

"Even after bestowing our anxious consideration, we cannot persuade

ourselves to hold that this is not a rarest of rare cases in which

lesser

alternative is unquestionably foreclosed," a bench comprising justice

K T

Thomas, justice R P Sethi and justice B N Agrawal said on Saturday.

 

Justice Thomas, with whom the other two judges agreed through a

separate

judgment, said the trial court and the high court have given very

cogent

reasons and quite elaborately for choosing the extreme penalty.

 

"We could not persuade ourselves in holding that A-1 Suresh and A-2

Ramji

should be pulled out of the contours of the extremely limited sphere,"

he

said.

 

On the dispute over a small land, Suresh, with the help of his

brother-in-law Ramji, killed his brother Ramesh, his wife and 3

children

with axe and choppers.

 

One of the children, 7-year-old Jitendra, who sustained serious

injuries

but survived, told the trial court that he saw his uncle Suresh and

Ramji

"acting like demons, cutting the sleeping children with axe and

chopper".

 

Lalji, uncle of Ramesh and Suresh, and neighbour Amar Singh

corroborated

the acts of Suresh and Ramji but did not attribute any overt act to

Suresh's wife Pavitri Devi, who was present near the scene.

 

The trial court convicted the 3 but the Allahabad High Court acquitted

Pavitri Devi from the charges of "common intention" under section 34

of

Indian Penal Code as the witnesses did not corroborate the story of

the

child witness about any overt act done by her.

 

Justice Thomas said "it is difficult to conclude that a person, merely

because he was present at or near the scene, without doing anything

more,

without carrying a weapon and without even marching along with the

other

assailants, could also be convicted with the aid of section 34 for the

offence committed by the other accused."

 

To fasten the liability of section 34 on a person, it is a must that

an

act, covert or overt, has to be done by him in the commission of a

crime,

he said.

 

"But if no such act is done by a person, even if he has common

intention

with the others for the accomplishment of the crime, section 34 cannot

be

invoked for convicting that person," the three-judge bench said.

 

However, it said to do a covert or overt act, the presence of a

co-accused was not necessary for him to be convicted under section 34,

justice Thomas said.

 

(source: The Times of India)

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