Pune: A sessions court on Thursday convicted and sentenced an engineer to life imprisonment for throttling his sister (23) to death in their rented flat in Bavdhan in the early hours of April 14, 2010, rejecting his defence that his severe depression amounted to legal insanity.Additional sessions judge Anilkumar K Sharma also rejected the defence plea to reduce the offence from murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and consider the incident as a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304-II of the IPC. The convict, Subhojit Basu (29 at the time of the offence), attempted suicide by slashing his wrists and consuming phenyl after the incident in April 2010.“Basu was out on bail two months and 18 days after his arrest on the day of the incident. He was taken into custody and sent to prison soon after the court pronounced the sentence,” special public prosecutor Leena Pathak told TOI.Pathak said Basu, an IIT alumnus, returned from the USA days before the incident and started a business incubator for robotic toys with support from CSIR-NCL. He stayed in the Bavdhan flat with his sister, Priyadarshini. She worked with the environmental organisation Greenpeace, the prosecutor said.Initial police investigation suggested that Basu suffered from depression and his condition was aggravated by being unemployed despite high qualifications. After the assault and suicide bid, he called his former IIT professor. The latter alerted the police control room. A Hinjewadi police team then reached the flat.The defence argued that at the time of the incident, the accused was suffering from insanity and was attempting to commit suicide, which his deceased sister was trying to prevent. In this scuffle, the accused pushed the deceased by her neck, resulting in her death.Judge Sharma held that the plea did not find “any substantive support from the evidence on record. At the same time, the prosecution established, based on the evidence discussed …, that the deceased died a homicidal death and that the accused was responsible for causing her death.”Psychiatrist Dr Nishikant Thorat acknowledged that Basu suffered from severe depression and had an HDRS (Hamilton Depression Ratings Scale) score of 37, but stated that he showed no features of insanity. The judgment recorded that Basu was conscious and oriented, had no delusions or perceptual abnormalities and understood the consequences of his conduct.The court referred to the mitigating and aggravating circumstances of the case, including no criminal antecedents of the accused, and held that the case did not fall within the rarest of the rare definition to merit a death sentence.Pathak said, “The medical evidence we furnished during the trial proved crucial in the conviction of the accused. Psychiatrist Dr Nishikant Thorat acknowledged that Basu suffered from severe depression and had an HDRS (Hamilton Depression Ratings Scale) score of 37, but stated that he showed no features of insanity.”The prosecution examined a total of nine witnesses, including Basu’s former IIT professor, in support of its case.
