Criminal Appeal no- 1531 of 2015
Supreme court of India
BENCH: Hon’ble Mr Dipak Mishra, Hon’ble Mr C. Nagappan
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 3rd Oct 2016
RELEVANT SECTIONS:
- Section 302 IPC (Punishment for murder)
- Section 201 IPC (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence )
- Section 364 IPC (kidnapping or abducting to murder)
BACK STORY
Nitish Katara, a business executive from Delhi was murdered on 17th Feb 2002 by the accused, Vikas Yadav, who is the son of an influential politician. The Katara’s murder is taken under the category of honour killing, as the victim was in love with the accused sister and since the family disapproved of this relationship, he was killed.
On 16th Feb 2002, the couple attended a friend’s wedding from which the victim was kidnapped by the accused brothers and went missing. After three days, the victim’s body was found near the highway in a burned condition. The police complaint was filed and the body was sent for postmortem.
FORENSIC REPORT
The postmortem was conducted at AIIMS, Delhi, and the report showed that he was bitten several times with a hammer in the skull, till he bleeds to death. After his death diesel was used as a fuel and the body was set on fire. The blood sample was collected from the victim’s parents to develop a DNA profile for the victim’s identification to the FSL. The DNA profile showed that the body belonged to Nitish Katara(the victim).
JUDGEMENT
Depending on the heinous nature of the crime committed by the accused, the trial court had awarded death sentence but it was later modified by the high court as life imprisonment not less than fourteen years. He further appealed at the Supreme court, where the accused Vikas Yadav and Vishal Yadav were awarded rigorous imprisonment for 25 years without remission under section 302, 364 and 201 of IPC along with a fine of Rs.1,00,000 each.