Team Herald
PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has quashed and set aside an order of the Sessions Court sentencing a 52-year-old accused to life imprisonment on charges of murder.
Advocate under the Legal Aid Scheme Anoop Gaonkar, appearing for accused Ravi Shankar argued that the Additional Sessions Judge ought to have held that the prosecution had failed to prove preparation or premeditation on the part of the accused to commit under Section 302 (Murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
Shankar was charged with killing his mother at Siolim in the year 2014. He kept silence and therefore the Sessions Court considered it as refusal of charge and proceeded trial against him. However, the prosecution failed to prove or connect the chain of events, the guilt of the accused, Adv Gaonkar said.
Shankar had lately filed an appeal before the High Court and taken up by the Legal Aid Cell to defend him. The counsel stated that nowhere the prosecution established there was premeditation before assault.
He further said that the act of the accused also did not come under culpable homicide amounting to murder and at the most it would fall under exception 4 of Section 300 and is liable for punishment under Section 304 Part II.
He added the appellant did not escape after the incident and was in a state of shock.
The Court opined that in absence of intention the accused was liable for lesser punishment as provided under Section 304 Part II. Hence, the imprisonment order by Trial Court in June 2016 has been quashed and set aside. The accused is now sentenced to undergo 10 years in jail and pay Rs 5,000 fine.
