Case comment of supreme court judgement of Vikas Yadav vs State of U.P & Ors. Etc
Name of Advocate: Senior Advocate Raju Ramchandra
INTRODUCTION
In the wee hours of February 17, 2002, Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal, kidnapped and brutally murdered 25-year-old Nitish Katara, who was an MBA graduate and an IAS officer's son.
The reason for the murder was Nitish Katara's intimacy with Vikas's sister Bharti Yadav. They took the help of a contract killer, Sukhdev Pehalwan, to carry out the murder. On February 20, 2002, Nitish Katara's body, charred and hammered, beyond recognition was found near Hapur crossing in a village in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh.
Vikas Yadav, Uttar Pradesh politician DP Yadav's son and Vishal, his nephew, could not tolerate the love affair between their sister and Katara and resorted to murder. In 2014, the Supreme court upheld their case as that of 'honour killing' fueled by the belief in parochial caste system. The same year, Delhi high court sentenced the accused to 25 years in jail without remission and and added an extra five years for destruction of evidence.
FACTS OF THE CASE
Yadav brothers kidnapped and murdered 25-year-old Nitish Katara on Feb 17, 2002.Nitish's badly charred body was found just after day-break on February 17, 80 km from the wedding venue. Soon after the police found his battered body, Katara's mother Neelam, filed an FIR. The police charged Vikas and Vishal with murder, kidnapping and removing evidence.
The police released a four-page charge sheet of the murder case on March 31, 2002.
After Nitish's mother Neelam Katara request, the Supreme Court directed
From the transfer of the case from a Ghaziabad sessions court to Delhi High
Court.
Sukhdev Pehalwan, the hired killer, was arrested in 2005, and the court held a separate trial after which the trial court slapped a life term on him.
From 2003 to 2006, Bharti Yadav, Katara's love interest repeatedly dodged court summons. In 2006, the prosecution moved to cancel her passport and gave a two month deadline to turn up. On May 30, 2008, a New Delhi fast track court handed Vikas and Vishal Yadav life sentences for kidnapping and murdering Nitish Katara. Both were also fined Rs.1,60, 000 each.
The Delhi high court in April 2014, upheld the sentence of 25 years in jail without remission and an additional five years for destruction of evidence against the accused.
The Trial Court held that Nitish’s murder was an honour killing because the family did not approve their relationship. Vikas, Vishal and Sukhdev Yadav were found guilty by the trial Court and awarded life sentence on 30 May 2008 for commission of offences under Section 302/364/201 read with Section 34 IPC.
The high court declined Neelam Katara's plea to award them death sentence
Because it did not come under the “rarest of rare category,” but promised they’d be given ‘adequate punishment.’
Finally, on October 3, 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that convict Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal will serve an imprisonment of 25 years each, whereas their aide Sukhdev Pehalwan will serve 20 years in jail.
JUDGEMENT
On 30 May 2008 New Delhi fast-track court-sentenced Vikas and Vishal Yadav to life sentences for the kidnap and murder of Nitish Katara. Nitish Katara who was in love with their sister,
Justice Misra used strong words to condemn ‘honour killing’ and said that “neither the family members nor the members of the collective have any right to assault the boy chosen by the girl. Her individual choice is her self-respect and creating dent in it is destroying her honour. And to impose so called brotherly or fatherly honor or class honor by eliminating her choice is a crime of extreme brutality.”
Both were also fined Rs. 160,000 each.
On 2 April 2014, Delhi High Court upheld the trial court verdict sentencing life imprisonment to Vikas Yadav, Vishal Yadav and the contract killer Sukhdev Pehalwan.[5] An appeal by Katara's mother and prosecution seeking death sentence to the convicts was rejected and The Delhi high court in April 2014, upheld the sentence of 25 years in jail without remission and an additional five years for destruction of evidence against the accused.
Delhi High Court on re-appeal on Death Sentence, extended sentence as to 25 years in jail without remission and their aide to 20 years, with an additional five years each for destruction of evidence.
On October 3, 2016, the Supreme Court while upholding the judgment of Delhi High Court said that those sentences would run concurrently and not one after the other as the High Court had ordered, effectively reducing the prison terms for each of them by five years. So since the Yadav’s, had been in jail for the last 14 years, they will be remain there till 2027.
Justice J.S. Khehar observed that with the help of a hired killer, Sukhdev Pehalwan, the duo “ took him (NitishKatar) home, then god knows where, killed him and dumped his body”. The murder was considered an honour killing, but a Supreme Court bench led by Justice J.S. Khehar said the crime can neither be classified as an honour killing nor be in the category of the rarest of rare crime warranting death penalty. “It may be a planned murder but it certainly is not heinous. And every murder is planned. Tell us which murder is not planned? If it is not planned, strictly speaking it will not be murder. If it is in heat of the moment, it will come under exception clause of Section 300 (murder)."
Conclusion
In the infamous Nitish Katara Murder case, the Bench of Dipak Misra and C. Nagappan, JJ upheld the order of the Delhi High Court imposing a punishment of imprisonment of 25 and 20 years for the offence under Section 302 IPC on Vikas and Vishal Yadav and Sukhdev Yadav, respectively, and 5 years for offence under Section 201 IPC, however, the High Court’s stipulation that both the sentences would run consecutively was modified and it was directed that both the sentences would run concurrently.
It was argued by the appellant that the fixed term imposed by the High Court curtails the power of remission after fourteen years as envisaged under Section 433-A CrPC. The High Court had not directed that the sentence under Section 201/34 IPC shall run first and, thereafter, the fixed term sentence will commence. State had contended that the Court should modify the sentence and direct that the appellants shall suffer rigorous imprisonment for the offence punishable under Section 201/34 IPC and, thereafter, suffer the fixed term sentences. The Court, however, refused to do so and instead directed that the sentence imposed for the offence punishable under Section 201/34 IPC shall run concurrently with the sentence imposed for other offences by the High Court.
Terming the offence to be one of ‘honour killing’, the Court said that one may feel “My honour is my life” but that does not mean sustaining one’s honour at the cost of another. Neither the family members nor the members of the collective have any right to assault the boy chosen by the girl. Her individual choice is her self-respect and creating dent in it is destroying her honour. And to impose so called brotherly or fatherly honor or class honor by eliminating her choice is a crime of extreme brutality, more so, when it is done under a guise, it is a vice, condemnable and deplorable perception of “honour”, comparable to medieval obsessive assertions.
0 Comments