No reduction of sentence, says judge

By Our Special Correspondent

VIJAYAWADA, NOV. 27. The Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Mr. S. Ravikumar, here today clarified that he had conducted the trial of Shaik Subani afresh on the direction of the High Court, convicted and awarded him life imprisonment and not reduced the sentence as reported in these columns today. Shaik Subani stabbed his `lover' Prasanna Lakshmi, an Intermediate student of JKC college at Guntur, in her classroom last year causing a sensation.

The Fourth Additional District Judge convicted him and sentenced him to death. But the High Court did not confirm the death sentence as required. Instead, acting on the appeal of Shaik Subani that he was not provided defence and that several prosecution witnesses were not cross-examined, the High Court remanded the case to the Metropolitan Sessions Judge (MSJ) asking him to conduct the trial from the stage of cross-examination of prosecution witness number 12. The State, however, filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court challenging the order. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition and directed the MSJ to complete the trial within six months.

Accordingly, cross-examination was conducted from PW 12 in the MSJ court here. The MSJ did not accept the plea of Mr. Kannabiran, amicus curie, appointed by the High Court, that the accused had committed the offence due to insanity. The Judge, however, admitted that it was not the rarest of rare cases to deserve capital punishment and awarded the culprit life imprisonment as he felt that it would be sufficient to meet the ends of justice.

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Section  : Southern States
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