Let off 35 yrs ago,HC says 75-yr-old guilty of murder

A division bench of Justices Vinod Prasad and Surendra Kumar directed that the Sohan be taken into judicial custody to serve the sentence. He has also been slapped a fine of Rs 10,000,which,if deposited,would be given to Ram. The HC also sentenced him to two-year rigorous imprisonment for being part of unlawful assembly,while being armed.

The incident had occurred in Poothari village under Muradnagar police station area. Sohan (then 39),along with co-accused,Sita Ram,Shiv Kumar,Rameshwar and Braham Singh,had killed Subhash and injured Ram around 10 am. The accused had chased Subhash and attacked him several times with spears. The accused had surrendered in the court a few days after the incident.

A day before the incident,the group led by Sohan was involved in a verbal duel with Subhash and Ram over removing heaps of mud from his field and then dumping it on the approach road. Sohan had objected to this. The bench said,“We find that the entire approach adopted by the learned trial court was perverse,sans common sense and it emerges that entire exercise was coated with exaggerated rule of acquittal. Some of the findings are based on pure conjecture and surmises. No prudent man could have ever reached the conclusions that have been arrived at by the learned trial judge.”

The sessions court had acquitted the accused on the grounds that the statements of the witnesses were doubtful. The court had taken serious note of the defence argument that they were being implicated because of family rivalry. However,the HC found the statement of witnesses cogent and reliable. It also maintained that there was no evidence of any deep-rooted family rivalry.