Women getting empowered for crime too, says apex court

"It only shows that in this country women are not only getting empowered in the positive direction, but also for committing crimes," a vacation bench of Justices G S Singhvi and C K Prasad noted.

The apex court said differences between neighbours should not degenerate to such an extent that they should resort to acid attacks on rivals.
"If you have differences with your neighbour you cannot go to the extent of attacking them with acid. The entire family seemed to be carrying a potful of acid to attack the neigbbours," the apex court told counsel R K Kapoor appearing for the accused.
The apex court rejected the argument of the counsel that the attack was in self defence as it was the five victims who had come to attack the accused as per the findings recorded by the Punjab & Haryana High Court.

"Are you in the process of manufacturing acid in the house that you found it readily available to attack the victims," the bench asked the counsel.
Fifteen persons including three women - Sinder Kaur, Piar Kaur and Mukhtiar Kaur - were convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment by the Ludhiana sessions court for attacking a family of five members in the neighbourhood over a property dispute on July 31, 2000. One person, Jagdev Singh, lost his eyes in the attack while others escaped with burns.

The High Court had on January 2, however, reduced the sentence to one year in the case of the women and two years for men, but enhanced the punishment to four years for the main accused Charan Singh.
The accused the appealed before the apex court challenging the conviction and sought bail.

The apex court, while making the observation, directed all the accused to surrender and said it will consider the bail application on May 28, except that of Charan Singh.