Katara case: Vikas and Vishal Yadav get lifer

Pronouncing an 18-page order on sentence, Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur, concluded that Katara, a business executive who was intimate with Vikas’ sister Bharti, had suffered a single injury on the skull which led to his death.

“The post mortem report speaks of only single injury on the skull of the deceased which is proved to have been caused by a hammer which in my opinion cannot be termed as murder in a brutal or diabolical manner,” the judge said.

“In my opinion, the present case does not fall within the ambit of any of the circumstances as laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Machi Singh Vs State of Punjab to award extreme penalty of death to the convict,” the ASJ said.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1.6 lakh each on the two convicts under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. The two were held guilty on Wednesday.

Vikas, 35, and Vishal, a year younger, had kidnapped Nitish on the night of February 16, 2002 from a marriage party in Ghaziabad and killed him. Vikas was opposed to Bharti’s intimacy with Katara.

“I have awarded life sentence to both the convicts. This case does not deserve death penalty,” the judge said.

Looking grim, D P Yadav, a former Minister of State in Uttar Pradesh, dubbed the sentence as the fall out of political vendetta and said he would move the High Court against the verdict.

Neelam Katara, mother of the 24-year-old victim, who fought an agonising six-year legal battle, refrained from making any immediate comments on the sentence.

“I have nothing to say,” she said when reporters wanted to know whether she was happy with the quantum of punishment.

Rejecting the prosecution plea for awarding death penalty to the convicts, the judge said, “this case does not fall in the rarest of rare category.”

“I cannot lose sight of the fact that there were three accused persons but only one injury is found on the person of the deceased, i.e on his skull which was the cause of the death which in my opinion is a great mitigating circumstances in favour of the convicts”.

“In the present case, in my opinion, it would meet the ends of justice if the convicts are awarded life imprisonment,” the judge said.

The ASJ was of the view that life imprisonment would act more as a deterrent than death penalty.

“In my opinion, it is not the death penalty which is a deterrent in which a person is hanged to death in few seconds. On the contrary, it is the life imprisonment which is a deterrent wherein the convict dies every moment in the jail,” the judge observed.

Katara’s partly burnt and mutilated body was recovered from Khurja in Bulandshahar district in UP, a day after he went missing.

The destruction of evidence by the convicts, who burnt Nitish’s body after the murder, was a separate offence under Section 201 of the IPC and does not invite extreme penalty of death, the judge said.

The Judge said that giving life imprisonment to the convicts was sufficient and would meet the ends of justice.

“It is held that life imprisonment is a rule and death is an exception. Death sentence must be imposed only when the life imprisonment appears to be an altogether inadequate punishment having regard to the relevant circumstances of the crime,” the court said.

Earlier, during the arguments on sentence, Special Public Prosecutor B S Joon sought death penalty against the convicts, describing their offence as a rarest of rare case while the counsel for Vikas and Vishal pleaded for leniency.

Citing various high-profile murder cases including that of Jessica Lall, counsel for Yadavs said no death penalty was awarded in these cases even though the conviction in these cases was based on direct evidence, while this case was based on circumstantial evidence.

However, Joon contended that even in cases based on circumstantial evidence, capital punishment had been awarded as was done in Naina Sahni murder case, popularly known as Tandoor murder case.

Highlighting the criminal background of the convicts, the prosecutor had said, they were not new to the world of crime and as far as Vikas was concerned, he was involved in three murder cases including the present one during the last 16 years.

Vikas, who was on bail in Jessica Lall case, when he had murdered Nitish.

During the trial in Katara case, Vikas was held guilty in the Jessica Lall murder case by the Delhi High Court for causing destruction of evidence and was awarded four years imprisonment.

The prosecutor was also referring to a murder case, registered against Vikas in 1991, which was later withdrawn by the Uttar Pradesh government.

However, Vikas’ counsel submitted that it would be wrong to describe him as a habitual offender as the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court had quashed the proceedings initiated against him under the National Security Act.

Countering defence counsel’s arguments that Vikas was a qualified mechanical engineer and could be an asset to the society, if given an opportunity to reform, Joon said, “What about the victim? He was just 24 and was employed with a reputed multinational firm as manager.”

“I am not saying that he (Nitish) could have become an asset to the society but he was an asset to the family,” he said.