New Delhi, Sep 22 A Delhi court has sentenced a man convicted of murdering his teacher inside a school to life imprisonment, saying his young age at the time of the offence was a significant mitigating circumstance against awarding him the death penalty.
Additional Sessions Judge Priya Mahendra was hearing arguments on sentencing Vivek Kumar, convicted of murdering his teacher while he was discharging his duty at the school, and awarded him life sentence, along with a fine of Rs 50,000.
In the judgement pronounced on Moinday, the court said, “The convict is around 28 years old at present and by all standards, he is very young. Further, it cannot be said that his very existence poses an imminent threat to the society, and life deserves to be snuffed out of him.”
Vivek was convicted on September 8 under sections 302 (murder), 186 (voluntarily obstructing public servants from discharging public functions) and 353 (assaulting or using criminal force against a public servant) of the IPC.
The court noted that the murder of the teacher inside the school was “abominable and despicable” and struck at the “sacred and time-honoured relationship between a teacher and a student”.
However, it said Vivek was 18 years and seven months old when he committed the offence and it would not be proper to attribute to him the mental faculties of a fully grown adult brain.
The court also considered the fact that Vivek was involved in another murder case while on interim bail in the present matter.
It, however, noted that according to the FIR in that case, his role was limited to exhorting other accused and holding the deceased, while the stabbing was allegedly carried out by the co-accused. He was granted bail in that case.
The court said the law requires the death penalty to be restricted to “rarest of rarest cases” while life imprisonment remains the standard rule.
The court also observed that it could not be said that Vivek's continued existence posed an imminent threat to society.
“It cannot be lost sight that the convict was in his adolescent years when he committed the abhorrent crime of murder of his school teacher,” the judge said.
During the arguments on sentencing, additional public prosecutor Kamal Akhter, assisted by the counsel for the victim, sought death penalty, submitting that Vivek murdered his teacher in a pre-planned and calculated manner in front of the entire school.
He argued that the offence involved aggravating circumstances, including extreme brutality and the murder of a public servant on duty, and submitted that there was no possibility of his reformation.
The defence urged the court to spare Vivek the death penalty, citing his age at the time of the offence, nearly nine years spent facing trial and his family circumstances.
While handing life sentence to Vivek, the court also awarded him three months' rigorous imprisonment under Section 186 of the IPC and two years' rigorous imprisonment under Section 353, with the sentences to run concurrently.
