SC upholds life imprisonment for honour killing

New Delhi, Oct 9 (UNI) In a case of honour killing prevalent in several parts of the country, the Supreme Court has upheld the life imprisonment awarded by the High Court in which four persons were killed in a brutal manner.

A bench comprising Justices S B Sinha and Harjit Singh Bedi, while holding that the present case fell within the category of 'the rarest of the rare cases ', however, ruled that in view of the peculiar circumstances, the court was not inclined to reimpose death penalty on the accused.

The trial court had sentenced the accused to death but Bombay High Court commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment in 2003.

A school girl Rajvinder Kaur fell in love with one Ravinder Singh who belonged to an inferior caste and was not-well off financially.

The two got married secretly despite opposition from the girl's family.

The boy and his family where under constant threat from the family of the girl. On the fateful day of May 30, 1999, four members of boy's family namely Ravinder Singh, his brother Harvinder Singh and his parents Dilip Singh and Lakswinder Kaur were killed by the accused persons who included the appellants Maya Kaur, Baldev Singh and another.

The Supreme Court in its judgement delivered yesterday noted " we are of the opinion that strictly speaking the present case would fall within parameters visualized in Bachan Singh and Machhi Singh cases. The diabolical nature of the crime and the murder of helpless individuals committed with traditional weapons with extreme cruelty and pre-meditation is exacerbated by the fact that Maya Kaur and Nirmal Kaur had come upstairs and recovered the jewellery and clothes from Rajvinder Kaur just before the actual murder.

Having said all this, we are of the opinion that in the peculiar circumstances that we are now facing, we are not inclined to reverse the life sentence verdict by the High Court and to reimpose the dealth penalty on the accused." UNI