By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday rejected the appeal of former Lok Sabha member Anand Mohan who had challenged his conviction and life imprisonment in the murder of Bihar’s Gopalganj district magistrate G. Krishnaiah in December 1994.
Anand Mohan had challenged his conviction and award of life imprisonment by the Patna High Court Dec 10, 2008.
The high court while upholding his conviction commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment. Anand Mohan and two others were handed down death sentence by the trial court Oct 3, 2007.
Upholding the conviction and the life imprisonment, an apex court bench of Justice A.K. Patnaik and Justice Swatanter Kumar in its judgement said: “We do not find any merit in either the appeal of A1 (Anand Mohan) or the appeals of the state (seeking restoration of death sentence) and we accordingly dismiss all the criminal appeals.”
Declining the Bihar government’s plea seeking the restoration of the trial court order of awarding death sentence to Anand Mohan, the apex court said: “We agree with this view of the high court and we are of the view that this was not one of those rarest of rare cases where the high court should have confirmed the death sentence.”
“In our considered opinion, Anand Mohan was liable for rigorous imprisonment for life,” Justice Patnaik said.
The high court, while commuting the death sentence of Anand Mohan to life imprisonment, held that “though the deceased was a district magistrate, he was killed in another district as an occupant of a car by chance on account of mob fury and exhortation by A1 (Anand Mohan) and firing by Bhutkun Shukla and as A1 (Anand Mohan) was not the assailant himself…”
Anand Mohan and 35 others were accused of lynching Krishnaiah Dec 5, 1994. Anand Mohan and others were accused of instigating the mob that killed him.
The trial court Oct 3, 2007 awarded death sentence to three accused, including Anand Mohan, and life sentence to four others, including his wife Lovely Anand. The trial court acquitted the other 29 accused.
The high court upheld the conviction of Anand Mohan but commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. The high court let off six accused. The Bihar government had challenged their acquittal by the high court.