Man convicted of killing wife set free by Delhi High Court

New Delhi: Allowing an appeal by a murder convict for converting his offence of killing his wife to causing her death on the spur of a moment without any intention, the Delhi high court has set him free with the term of imprisonment he had already undergone during the pendency of the case.

The court later ordered his immediate release. The Delhi police had lodged a murder case against convict Pawan Kumar on a complaint by the father of the victim in 2010. The couple had got married in 2002 and two children were born out of the wedlock.

The trial court had awarded him life imprisonment, holding him guilty of smothering his wife. Counsel for the convict did not challenge his conviction. Rather, he argued that it was a case of his client killing his wife in the heat of the moment without any intention. “In the present case, we find that though it was the case of the prosecution that the appellant used to regularly beat his wife/the deceased, the same is belied by the medical evidence,’’ the HC said.