New Delhi, Aug 6 (PTI) Forty years after three men were booked for murder following a trivial fight among children over mangoes in a UP village, the Supreme Court has come to their rescue by reducing the life sentence into a seven-year jail term.

The life sentence has been awarded for a lesser offence of culpable homicide.

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In 1984, three men were booked for murder of a fellow villager by hitting with a 'lathi' (stick) on the head. The trial court in 1986 convicted them for murder and sentenced them for life, while the Allahabad High Court in 2022 confirmed the sentence awarded to them by the trial court in Gonda district of the state.

Two of the five convicts passed away during pendency of appeal before the high court and proceedings against them were abated.

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A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said considering the totality of the facts and circumstances of the case, the nature of the injuries on the deceased and also considering the nature of the weapon used which is a 'lathi', "we are inclined to accept the argument that it is indeed a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and it is not murder".

The bench said from the deposition of all the eyewitnesses in the case, it has come on record that it was not a case of pre-planned murder.

"Therefore, we convert the findings of section 302 (murder) of IPC to that of Section 304 Part-I of IPC, and thereby convert the sentence of life imprisonment of all the appellants before us to that of seven years rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 25,000 to be given by each appellant which shall be deposited by them within a period of eight weeks from today, if not already deposited," the bench said in its order of July 24 but uploaded recently on the apex court's website.

The amount to be deposited shall be given to the victim's family, the bench said and fastened the responsibility to the district magistrate of Gonda district in Uttar Pradesh for compliance of the order.

The three convicts Man Bahadur Singh, Bharat Singh and Bhanu Pratap Singh through their lawyer Saksham Maheshwari have argued that it is not a case of murder but it is a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder as it would come under Exception 4 of Section 300 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

Exception 4 of section 300 of India Penal Code says, "Culpable homicide is not murder if it is committed without premeditation in a sudden fight in the heat of passion upon a sudden quarrel and without the offender having taken undue advantage or acted in a cruel or unusual manner."

The top court noted the incident of April 19, 1984 started with a fight between children over mangoes which unfortunately flared up when the adults of the families also got involved which ultimately led to the deceased Vishwanath Singh, the father of one of the children, being killed.

Vishwanath Singh got injured and was taken to the hospital at Gonda by bullock cart where he was declared dead and the post-mortem was performed.

The bench said out of the five ante-mortem injuries recorded in the postmortem report, two injuries seems to have been fatal and Singh's skull was fractured which ultimately led to his death.

It noted that there were eyewitnesses to the incident, particularly three eye witnesses out of which one of them had got injured.

"They were put to a lengthy cross-examination in the trial but nothing has come which could cast any doubt on their testimony. Under these circumstances, the fact that the death is homicidal is not in question and the fact that the deceased died due to the injuries caused to him by the lathi blows inflicted by the appellants, has also been clearly established by the evidence placed by the prosecution," the bench noted, while disposing of the appeal of convicts.

Maheshwari said the convicts have served a few years in jail in the case but were granted bail during the pendency of appeal in the high court.

"They are currently in jail for serving the remaining jail term after their life sentence was confirmed by the high court on December 21, 2022," he told PTI.

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