Three persons, including cousins Vikas and Vishal Yadav, serving life sentence for brutally killing Nitish Katara in 2002, on Monday escaped death penalty with the Supreme Court dismissing the Delhi government’s appeal on the issue saying the offence did not fall under the “rarest of rare” category.
“There has been one (hammer) blow. Can there be death penalty for three (convicts),” a bench comprising Justices J.S. Khehar and R. Banumathi said while rejecting the appeal of the Delhi government seeking gallows for all the three convicts.
“One appeal (of complainant Neelam Katara) has already been dismissed. This does not fall under the rarest of rare category,” the bench said.
Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, who along with senior lawyer Dayan Krishnan, appeared for the Delhi government and sought admission of the appeal for enhancing the punishment, saying the Yadav cousins had committed the offence while being out on bail in another case and one of them had paid nearly a hundred visits to hospitals while serving life term.
Dismissing the appeal, the court said it would require the assistance of the Delhi government lawyers in deciding the limited question of quantum of sentence as it has already dismissed appeals of convicts against the conviction and that of Neelam Katara for award of death penalty.
Vikas and Vishal Yadav are serving 30 years jail term for killing Nitish Katara in 2002, while the third convict Sukhdev Pehalwan is serving 25 year imprisonment in the case.
The bench has now fixed the appeals of convicts for final hearing in February next year on the “limited question” whether the high court was justified in awarding jail term of 30 years to the Yadav cousins and 25 years to Pehalwan.
