SC rejects man's plea of unsound mind; confirms life term

A man’s last ditch attempt to escape life term on unsoundness of his mind was thwarted by the Supreme Court, which said that a person who killed his wife and two children should remain behind the bars till the end of his life.

A bench of Justices F M I Kalifullah and Amitava Roy did not see any ground to interfere with the Gujarat High Court order, awarding life term to Sureshbhai Babarabhai Rathodiya, and rejected his appeal. Advocate Dushyant Parashar, representing the accused, claimed that the petitioner was suffering from a mental disease and was kept under observation of psychiatric between September 15 to 20, 2004. He sought statutory protection of the accused under Section 84 of the Indian Penal Code, which stated that a person of unsound mind cannot be held liable for his acts.

Referring to the offence, the counsel submitted that the accused never tried to run away from the scene of occurrence and it was found that he was suffering with paranoid type of disease. According to prosecution, Rathodiya axed his wife Manjulaben and one daughter at his home.