Ghaziabad: The sessions court sentenced a Niwari resident, Sunil alias Bablu, to life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh for killing his father and brother over land in Dec 2018.The case is based on an FIR registered under Section 302 of the IPC by Sudha, wife of the deceased, Subhash. The FIR claimed that on the afternoon of Dec 23, Sunil assaulted Subhash and her father-in-law, Pritam Singh, with a spade when they went to an agricultural field. It is alleged that Sunil, the younger of the two brothers, had grievances over their father’s will, which allegedly favoured Subhash over him.Police arrested the accused on Dec 28 and recovered the spade used in the murder. The next year, on March 27, a chargesheet was filed in court. The accused pleaded not guilty and sought a trial. During the prosecution, 12 witnesses were presented.Prosecution counsel DGC Rajesh Chandra Sharma said that the case rested on the direct testimony of two eyewitnesses, the plaintiff and her brother, who were present at the spot. The defence also presented four witnesses.The court accepted the prosecution’s arguments, holding that even if the motive for the murder remained disputed, the act squarely fell within the definition of murder punishable under Section 302 IPC.Judge Vinod Singh Rawat withheld capital punishment, noting that the death penalty need not be inflicted except in the gravest cases of extreme culpability. He stated that as “the violence was born out of a localised family enmity rather than a bloodthirsty threat to the public order, the irrevocable penalty of death cannot be justified.”The court also avoided awarding a life term till the end of the convict’s natural life, stating that the Supreme Court in Kiran v. State of Karnataka, 2025, held that sessions courts are not empowered to order imprisonment for the remainder of a convict’s natural life and such powers rest only with constitutional courts.
