SC commutes death sentence of CPM activist to life

New Delhi, Dec 15 (UNI) The Supreme Court today commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to a CPM activist of Kerala involved in the sensational broad daylight murder of a school teacher K P Jaikrishnan who was the vice-President of the state Bhartiya Yuva Morcha and had sustained as many as 44 injuries.

The trial court had awarded death sentence to the five accused persons including Acharaparambath Pardeepan and the same was confirmed by the state high court.

A bench comprising Justices S B Sinha and Markandey Katju while commuting the death sentence of A Pradeepan to life imprisonment dismissed his appeal but acquitted four others in the case giving them benefit of doubt.

Those acquitted by the apex court include Sundaran, Shaji, Dinesh Babu and Anil Kumar. Accused no 7 Sajeevan died during the pendence of the appeal.

The ghastly incident took place in a class room on December 1,1999 in Mokeri East U.P. School, Paramel, Kannur District, Kerala.

An investigation started on December 8,1999, i.e. 7 days after the ghastly incident which shook the people of the area as the murder took place in full view of children and the hapless victim was attacked with rods and chased and finally killed due to political rivalry.

The accused had earlier thrown some poison-like substance in the eyes of the security guard of the deceased who was facing threat to his life.

The apex court in its 35-page judgment written by Justice Sinha for the bench gave benefit of doubt to the four accused due to inordinate delay in holding Test Identification Parade (TIP).

In case of Pradeepan, the court held that defective investigation by itself may not lead to conclusion that the accused is innocent but held that keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, the court was of the opinion that it can not be said to be a rarest of rare case warranting imposition of the extreme punishment.

UNI AKS/SC RP BD1854