Terming the crime as 'rarest of rare cases', Principal District and Session Judge of the Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir Haq Nawaz Zargar awarded a death sentence to a man for brutely murdering his aged helpless widow mother just for a piece of land.
After hearing Public Prosecutor and counsel for the accused and considering the statement of prosecution witnesses and also the circumstantial evidence in the form of a disclosure statement of the accused, the recoveries made on the basis disclosure statement and other circumstantial evidence, which the prosecution has produced, the Court observed that it was well established and proved that the accused has committed the offense.
Interestingly, two witnesses produced in the case were the son and wife of the accused, who killed his mother.
Cruel incident shocked society
"This establishes that the crime has been committed most brutally by the convict and the deceased was none other than the one who had given birth to the convict. The deceased was a hapless and helpless widow and was unarmed without offering any resistance or provocation to the convict at the time of occurrence", the Court observed.
It is clear that the instant crime has been committed for the reason that the convict was demanding two kanal of land from the deceased besides asking her to reside with the other son Mulakh Raj.
Such kinds of crimes besides being anti-social, shock the very conscious of the society where the relation of a mother is taken on the highest pedestal on moral as well as religious grounds. "Cases of such nature arose intense and extreme indignation of society, which ultimately gives ample power to the courts to award maximum punishment for the commission of such acts by the wrongdoers", the court observed.
Crime falls under the "rarest of rare cases"
Thus, on the existence of aforesaid mitigating and aggravating circumstances and evaluation thereof, the Court finds that the aggravating circumstances are much more grave and serious than the mitigating circumstances.
"As such the instant case falls within the ambit of "rarest of rare cases" and therefore, in my pensive opinion the accused Jeet Singh does not deserve any leniency in the sentences to be awarded to him except sending the convict to the gallows would be adequate", the court observed.
In view of the discussion made herein above and on the facts and circumstances of the case, the convict namely Jeet Singh son of Krishan Singh resident of Village Rassain Tehsil Ramnagar District Udhampur is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and pay a fine of Rs.3000/- for the commission of an offence under section 307 RPC and in default of payment of fine, he shall further undergo simple imprisonment for one month.
The convict is also sentenced to death for the commission of an offence under section 302 RPC and he shall be hanged by the neck till he is dead and for the commission of an offence under section 4/25 Arms Act, the convict is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment of 03 years and fine of Rs. 2000-(Two thousand rupees only). In case of failure to pay the fine he shall further undergo rigorous imprisonment for one month. All the sentences shall run concurrently
As per the prosecution story, on 07.12.2014 at about 1730 hours information was received at the Police Station from reliable sources that accused Jeet Singh of the criminal intention has murdered his mother Vaishno Devi with Iron Toka (Darat) at his house and when his wife Santosh Devi tried to rescue her, the accused also made a murderous assault upon her due to which she got seriously injured.
On the said information, police station Ramnagar registered a case vide FIR No. 125/2014 for the commission of offences under sections 302/307 RPC, and the investigation was started and a challan was presented in the Court.
