10 year RI for hurling bomb near Supreme Court gate

New Delhi, Apr 5 (UNI) A city court today sentenced a man to ten years imprisonment for hurling a bomb near the Supreme Court gate six years ago, injuring half-a-dozen people.

After hearing the arguments of both the prosecution and the defence, Patiala House Court Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Vinod Kumar held Upender Kumar Mohanty guilty and sentenced him to ten years imprisonment.

The court further slapped a fine of Rs 6000 on him.

On October 10, 2000, at about 1150 hours in the broad daylight, Upender hurled a bomb near the c-Gate of Supreme Court around noon, injuring the Head constable Kanha Ram and constables Ishwar Chand, Kishore, and Vijay Singh. Santosh Kumar a fruit vendor and Lakhpat Saini, a peon.

Vijay Singh and Kishore Kumar had identified 'Upender as the person who had hurled the bomb.' However, the judge observed that, ''he did not have the intention to commit any harm to any person and was greatly aggrieved by the legal system of our country.'' ''During the trial, Upender was dressing himself as Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. But on questioning, he even did not know who was Netaji was He had a wrong concept of patriotism, the judge said in his order.

Upender was convicted under sections 332 (Voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 323 (assault or use of criminal force on grave and sudden provocation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 5 of the Explosives Act.

UNI XC VD RN1924