Elderly man gets 4 years for acid attack

An elderly man has been sentenced to four years in jail by a Delhi court for trying to kill a taxi driver by throwing acid on his face.

District judge O P Gupta awarded the jail term to west Delhi resident Om Prakash, 60, saying the punishment must have a deterrent effect.

“The punishment must be such which has a deterrent effect. Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case, I feel the sentence of rigorous imprisonment for four years would meet the ends of justice,” the judge said, while also imposing a fine of Rs 3,000.

The maximum punishment under the Indian Penal Code for a murder bid is life imprisonment.

Om Prakash, convicted for trying to kill taxi driver Karan Kumar, had sought leniency saying the offence was committed in the spur of the moment and there was no pre-planning.

Kumar had deposed that Om Prakash had thrown acid on his face for washing his taxi in front of his stationary shop on February 28, 2011.

Prakash had objected to washing of the vehicle in front of his shop and when Kumar did not heed to his objections, the accused brought a mug of acid from his shop and threw it at the victim, the prosecution had said.

Forgery accused jailed

A man convicted for seeking a US visa on the basis of fake documents has been sentenced to eight days in jail by a Delhi court after he pleaded guilty as per the provisions of plea bargaining. After awarding the mild sentence to Haryana native Gurjant Singh, metropolitan magistrate Navita Kumari also set it off against the eight days he had spent in custody during trial.

The court also imposed a Rs 7,000 fine. According to the latest amendment in the CrPC, plea bargaining provides for an accused to plead guilty to his alleged offence in exchange of dropping of charges or for a lesser sentence by the prosecutor.

During the course of the trial, 29-year-old Singh had pleaded guilty to charges of cheating, forgery and submitting forged documents to obtain a US visa on June 1, 2007.
Singh had told the court that he is the sole bread winner in the family and has the responsibility to look after his wife and old parents.

He had also pleaded with the court to consider that he had already served eight days in jail and assured that he will not repeat such a mistake in the future.