By IANS
New Delhi : Friends of slain Delhi University law student Priyadarshini Mattoo are alarmed over an apex court ruling last week that even a double murder committed “in a fit of passion” after an abortive rape bid does not deserve death penalty.
They have termed as “shocking” the ruling by Justices S.B. Sinha and Markandey Katju upholding a Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling, which commuted a death sentence on a double murder convict by a lower court to life term, saying it did not fall in the ‘rarest of rare’ category.
The convict, Kulvinder Singh, had in August 2002 hacked to death Hardeep Kaur in a Punjab village after she resisted his bid to rape her. He also killed the woman’s grandmother who tried to save her.
“While upholding the conviction of the accused for murder, we reduce the sentence to life imprisonment since it appears that the crime was committed in a fit of passion and does not come within the category of the ‘rarest of rare’ to deserve death penalty,” the apex court bench ruled.
A Sessions court had sentenced Kulvinder Singh to death saying: “The conduct of the accused depicted him as a person who constituted a threat to the society. He has forfeited his right to life by his barbarity.”
Priyadarshini Mattoo, a 23-year-old law student, was raped and murdered in January 1996 by Santosh Singh, her senior and the son of senior police official J.P. Singh. He had been stalking the girl for over a year.
Friends of Mattoo say the apex court ruling would give Santosh Singh an escape route.
Aditya Raj Kaul, who spearheaded the campaign ‘Justice to Priyadarshini Mattoo’ after a Delhi trial court had acquitted Santosh, said: “It’s a shocking ruling from the highest court of the country.”
“At this rate, Santosh Singh’s lawyer may also argue before the apex court that he committed the crime in a fit of passion after he failed to rape her and may escape the gallows.
“After all Santosh Singh and his lawyers can conveniently cite his past conduct of consistently stalking her to convince the court that he had a passion aflame for Mattoo,” he said, adding that all the members of the campaign were equally disturbed by the ruling.
“This judgment has alarmed us. We will discuss on what we should do in such a situation,” Kaul said.
The Delhi High Court sentenced Santosh Singh to death last year. His appeal is pending before the apex court.