By IANS
Mumbai : The curtain finally hung down Tuesday on one of the most sensational trials in recent years. Pravin Mahajan was sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal killing of his elder brother, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pramod Mahajan, in April 2006.
Public Prosecutor Nitin Pradhan said that since there are no other conditions, Pravin would remain in jail for the rest of his life – not 14 years, which is the minimum sentence under life imprisonment.
“However, the exact number of years he will be in jail will be decided later. My guess is he will remain imprisoned for at least 25 years by all counts,” Pradhan told IANS Tuesday evening.
Both – the prosecution and defence – have decided to appeal against the verdict of sessions judge S.P. Davare.
While the prosecution will appeal to press for its known stand of getting the death penalty, the defence will appeal against the life imprisonment, which includes five years of rigorous imprisonment.
As the marathon arguments between the prosecution and defence ended Tuesday around 3.30 p.m., Judge Davare rejected the prosecution plea for capital punishment.
“The murder is not a rarest of rare case and, therefore, death sentence need not be awarded,” the judge ruled, observing that it was not an extreme case of grave culpability.
Pravin, 48, has also been slapped with a fine of total Rs.20,000, which includes Rs.15,000 for the murder and Rs.5,000 for the criminal trespass. He was found guilty under IPC Sec. 320 and Sec. 449 by the court Monday.
He had gone to Pramod’s residence in Purna building, Worli, around 7.45 a.m. April 22, 2006. After a brief argument, he pumped three bullets into Pramod’s abdomen. A fourth bullet got wedged in the revolver, which malfunctioned.
Pravin later surrendered himself at the Worli police station.
The trial took nine months, during which 32 witnesses were examined. The most prominent were Rekha, Pramod Mahajan’s widow, and Gopinath Munde, his brother-in-law and colleague in the BJP.