Rape and murder cases: Conviction in one; lifer in the other

The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted the death sentence of Santosh Kumar Singh, convicted in the Priyadarshini Mattoo rape and murder case, while a fast track court in Karnataka convicted a cab driver for raping and murdering call centre employee Pratibha Murthy.

Commuting Santosh?s death sentence, handed down by the Delhi High Court, a Supreme Court bench of Justices H S Bedi and C K Prasad said “the ends of justice would be met” even with life sentence.

“To our minds the balance sheet is slightly in favour of the appellant,” the judges of Supreme Court said on Wednesday, upholding the conviction but commuting the death sentence.

The high-profile case involved the son (Santosh Kumar Singh) of a former IPS officer who had been sentenced to death by a high court for the crime committed 14 years ago.

?The entire civil society is dismayed. We had hoped that the court would uphold the Delhi Court death penalty judgement,” said an anguished Chaman Lal Mattoo after the news of the verdict poured in.

Mattoo said he was shattered and disappointed.

The Delhi High Court earlier had pronounced death sentence of Santosh Singh after convicting him in the case, fought by the family of Mattoo for nearly 14 years, overcoming each legal setback with fortitude and greater resolve.

Priyadarshini Mattoo, a third year Delhi University law student, was found murdered in January 1996 in her south Delhi house at Vasant Kunj.

Singh had raped and murdered the law college student at her residence.

A trial court had in 1999 had acquitted Singh for lack of evidence but the magistrate said he was convinced that Singh was guilty.

Priyadarshini’s father Chaman Lal Mattoo since then fought a hard legal battle, though the media and the civil society offered him moral support.

The case was probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which produced DNA evidence.

In a separate case, a fast track court in Karnataka convicted a cab driver for raping and murdering call centre employee Pratibha Murthy in 2005.

The crime had shocked the country and prompted the BPO sector to formulate safety guidelines.

The quantum of punishment would be announced on Oct 8.

The judge has said all charges of rape and murder were proved against Shivakumar, the driver of a car of the call centre where the victim worked, and he was held guilty.

Pratibha Srikantha Murthy, a call centre employee, was raped and murdered on the night of Dec 13, 2005, allegedly by her office car driver Shivakumar.

The girl was killed after being raped allegedly by the accused who had picked her up on the fateful night when the regular driver failed to turn up.

The parents of the victims are fighting the case to bring the accused to justice.

The sobbing mother of the victim demanded death sentence of the convict.

“He should be hanged. For me nobody is there. I have to suffer till my death. The judgement should be a lesson to others so that they do not commit such a crime,” said Gowramma, the mother of the victim.

“I will fight till end,” she said.

Reacting to the case, IT firm Infosys’ HR director Mohandas Pai told a TV channel that the punishment should be severe.