SC dismisses review plea by Vikas Yadav against 25-year jail without remission

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a review petition filed by Vikas Yadav, son of controversial Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav, against 25 years jail term without remission awarded to him for killing Nitish Katara, a young MBA, over an affair with his sister.
 
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and S A Bobde found no ground to interfere with the apex court's judgement of October 3, 2016.
 
“We have carefully gone through the review petition and the connected papers, but we see no reason to interfere with the order impugned. The review petitions are, accordingly, dismissed,” the bench said.
 
The apex court had then dismissed the appeal by Vikas and Sukhdev against their jail term for a fixed period.
 
Concurring with the Delhi HC's conclusion, the court had then noted that the honour killing was a facet of “medieval obsessive assertions” that had resulted in the murder of Nitish in February 2012 after his abduction from a marriage function in UP's Ghaziabad district.
 
The court maintained that a woman's “individual choice is her self-respect and creating a dent in it is destroying her honour”. The freedom, independence, constitutional identity, individual choice and thought of a woman could not be allowed to be curtailed by physical force or threat or mental cruelty, it added.
 
The court also held that Vikas's jail terms under charges of murder and for the destruction of evidence shall run concurrently.
 
The HC had sentenced Vikas to life imprisonment with a fixed term of 25 years without remission, and another five years for destroying evidence. It had ordered the jail terms shall run consecutively.
 
The apex court, however, said that a person could not be first sentenced to life imprisonment and then be given additional punishment since life term would ordinarily mean until the natural end of life. Therefore, the bench said, that the High Court order had to be modified to the extent that the sentences shall run concurrently.
 
Vikas was also directed to pay a fine of Rs 50 lakh, out of which Rs 25 lakh and Rs 5 lakh would be disbursed to the governments in Delhi and UP respectively towards investigation and prosecution in this case. A sum of Rs 20 lakh would be given to Neelam Katara, Nitish's mother, as costs incurred by her in relentless pursuing the matter.
 
Vikas's first cousin Vishal Yadav, the third convict, had not appealed against his conviction and sentence. Vishal would hence remain incarcerated for at least 30 years unless he gets a similar order from the apex court.