Nainital, Jan 21 The Uttarakhand High Court has commuted the life sentence of a man convicted of killing a constable in 2014 during an attempt to escape from police custody to the period he has already spent in jail and has ordered his release.
The High Court held that the murder was not premeditated and treated the case against Rajendra Kumar Arya as culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 of the IPC instead of murder under Section 302.
Arya, who is convicted of killing Constable Surendra Singh while trying to escape from custodt at the Mukhani police outpost in Nainital district, has been in jail since May 2014, for nearly 11 years.
A vacation bench of Justices Ravindra Maithani and Alok Mahra, which heard the case,, ruled that the accused should only be punished for the time he has already spent in jail and ordered Arya's immediate release.
According to the case, on May 28, 2014, Arya was taken into custody at the Mukhani police outpost in Haldwani in connection with a theft case. According to the police, before dawn, Arya tried to escape from custody, and when Constable Surendra Singh, who was on duty, tried to stop him, Arya attacked him on the chest with an iron rod lying nearby.
Constable Surendra Singh, who suffered serious injuries, died while being taken to the hospital.
In 2017, the First Additional Sessions Court in Haldwani sentenced Arya to life imprisonment under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and two years of rigorous imprisonment for attempting to escape from custody. The accused challenged this decision in the High Court.
The police had claimed that the accused tried to escape after unlocking his handcuffs, but the High Court expressed doubt on this, saying that the police failed to prove where the accused got the keys from. The court was of the view that perhaps the accused was not handcuffed.
The High Court held that the murder was not premeditated. The accused was merely trying to escape, and during the scuffle, he picked up a rod lying nearby and attacked the constable.
Accordingly, the court modified the conviction from Section 302 to Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code. Since the accused has been continuously in jail since May 28, 2014, the court sentenced him to the time already served in prison.
The High Court ordered that if the accused is not wanted in any other case, he should be released immediately. The fine imposed on Arya by the lower court was upheld.
