The Division Bench comprising Justices N Ananda and A S Pachhapure dismissed a petition by Arun Varma (accused 1), A Venkatesh (accused 2), Dinesh (accused 3) and Shubha (accused 4), challenging the lower court order, thereby confirming the sentence of the lower court.
Reading out the operative part of the judgment, Justice N Ananda, said: “We concur with the findings recorded by the learned trial court judge that the accused 1 to 4 are guilty of an offence punishable under Section 302 (murder) read with 120B IPC (criminal conspiracy).” The court also said Shubha was guilty of an offence punishable under Section 201 IPC.
Pointing out that Shubha was part of a conspiracy to murder Girish, the Bench observed that despite knowing that it was accused No 2 (Venkatesh) who assaulted Girish, she had given false information.
Criminal conspiracy
“We hold that during the period between November 24, 2003, and December 3, 2003, the accused 1 to 4 had entered into a criminal conspiracy to commit murder and in pursuance of such criminal conspiracy, accused No 4 (Shubha) took the deceased to Air View Point...on the pretext of seeing landing of aeroplanes.” The Bench also pointed out discrepancies in the lower court judgment.
The fast-track court had sentenced Arun, Dinesh and Shubha to simple imprisonment of 10 months under Section 120B of IPC and Venkatesh to life imprisonment. The Bench said the accused had entered into criminal conspiracy and invited punishment under Section 302 IPC.
“Therefore, we set right these discrepancies by sentencing accused 1 to 4 to undergo imprisonment for life for an offence punishable under Section 302 read with 120B IPC,” the Bench said.
The Bench also considered the deleted text messages from the mobile phone sent by Shubha to Arun and observed that the call history revealed that the accused were in touch with each other and had hatched a conspiracy.Regarding the appeal by the State seeking modification of the sentence for the accused Arun, Dinesh and Shubha, and imposition of death penalty on Venkatesh, the Bench allowed the first prayer of modification.
The court dismissed the State’s appeal seeking death sentence for Arun, Dinesh and Shubha, observing that A Venkatesh could not be isolated, as the conspirators could not be classified as primary and secondary. The court did not find the crime falling under the rarest of rare category. The fine of Rs 50,000 imposed by the lower court on all the four and the fine amount of Rs 2,00,000 given to the family of deceased were also confirmed.