New Delhi: In a first off case since it prioritised hearing of the death penalty case, the Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed capital punishment for a man from Punjab, who killed six people by drowning them in a canal.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice AK Sikri upheld the death sentence awarded to Khushwinder Singh, who, on the pretext of performing a religious ritual, had killed six of his wife's relatives in 2012.
"Death sentence is confirmed. Appeal is dismissed," said Justice MR Shah, reading out the operative part of the judgement on behalf of the bench.
The Court termed Singh's offence as rarest of the rare and held that there is no other punishment befitting to the gruesome crime.
It noted that Singh committed the premeditated murder in cold-blood, taking advantage of the trust of his wife's relatives.
The bench also weighed the aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the matter, before reaching to the conclusion that death sentence was the only appropriate punishment in this case.
It was also noticed by the top court that Singh was held guilty and sentenced to death by a CBI trial court in Mohali for killing a family of four in 2004 by, once again, pushing the victims into a canal and drowning them. The appeal in the second conviction is presently pending.
After Justice Ranjan Gogoi took over as the Chief Justice of India, death penalty cases were prioritised, and at least three benches in the Supreme Court were being given the task to decide these cases expeditiously.
Ever since these cases were taken up, the top court commuted death sentence in more than a dozen cases.
Confirming Singh's death sentence is the first case in this batch of cases.
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