The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted the death sentence of Santosh Kumar Singh, who is convicted by the Delhi High Court earlier in the rape and murder of Delhi college student Priyadarshini Mattoo.
“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 at the studio of NDTV soon after the news of the verdict poured in.
Mattoo said he was shattered and disappointed.
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.
“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 Supreme Court bench of Justices H S Bedi and C K Prasad, however, said “the ends of justice would be met” even with life sentence.
They had on July 29 reserved the verdict in view of an appeal by the accused.
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.
Convict Santosh Kumar Singh had appealed challenging the verdict of the Delhi High Court which sentenced him to death in Oct 2006.
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 his 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.
In October 2006, the Delhi High Court reversed the trial court order and convicted Santosh Singh for raping and killing Priyadarshini. He was given the death penalty as the court found his crime ?grotesque and brutal?.
The case was probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which produced DNA evidence.
The entire country was awaiting the verdict in the high profile case, which along with the case of model Jessica Lall?s murder triggered a public outrage and civil society activism.