'Offence committed with adrenaline pumping in veins', SC allows girl, others to seek pardon for killing fiance

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld conviction of a BA-LLB student along with three others, including her boyfriend, for killing her fiance, working as a software engineer in Intel in Bengaluru in year 2003 within days of her engagement.

The court, however, permitting the convicts to file appropriate petitions before the Governor of Karnataka to seek pardon, by requesting the constitutional authority to consider it, taking note of the relevant circumstances governing the case, including the fact that the offence was caused by unwanted marriage thrust upon the girl.

A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and Aravind Kumar dismissed an appeal filed by Kum Shubha alias Shubhashankar and others against the Karnataka High Court's judgment, upholding the conviction and award of sentence of life imprisonment upon them.

The court found the link for circumstantial evidence, CDR, showing the girl's continuous communications with the other accused.

It also noted the motive for the offence -- an unwarranted marriage thrust upon her -- was also proved with the evidence.

The engagement of the girl took place on November 30, 2003 with B V Girish. Two days after on December 3, 2004, she called up her finance to take her for dinner.

On their way back, they stopped at the “Air View Point” located at the Airport Ring Road to watch the landing of aeroplanes. At that time, the deceased received fatal injuries on his head at the hands of an unknown assailant, who fled after inflicting the injuries, using a steel rod. The deceased died next day in the hospital.

The trial court convicted the appellants and the High Court upheld the judgment.

The court, however, said this unfortunate event would not have occurred, had the family been more sympathetic in understanding the mental predilection and disposition of the appellant girl.

"We cannot condone her action as it resulted in the loss of an innocent life of a young man. We would only state at this juncture, that A-4 (the girl) was made to commit this offence by adopting the wrong course of action in order to address her problem. Years have rolled on since the occurrence of the crime, which was in 2003," Justice Sundresh wrote in 132-page judgment on behalf of the bench.

The court noted the appellants, who committed the offence with adrenaline pumping in their veins, have now reached the middle age.

"Two out of the four accused persons were teenagers at the time of occurrence...As a court, we seek to view the matter from a different perspective, only for the purpose of giving a new lease of life to the appellants who have committed a heinous crime, notwithstanding the availability of other alternative avenues to resolve the problems faced by the girl," the bench said.

The court granted eight weeks’ time for the appellants to file appropriate petitions seeking to invoke the power of pardon under Article 161 of the Constitution.

"Till these petitions are duly considered and decided, the appellants shall not be arrested and their sentence shall remain suspended," the bench ordered.