SC dismisses Vikas Yadav’s review plea in Nitish Katara murder case

Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea by Vikas Yadav, one of the convicts in the sensational kidnapping and murder of business executive Nitish Katara in 2002, seeking a review of its verdict sending him to jail for 25 years.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice SA Bobde rejected the review plea saying there was no reason to interfere with the court’s verdict of October 3 last year.

“We have gone through the review petitions and the connected papers, but we see no reason to interfere with the order impugned. The review petitions are dismissed,” the bench said.

Besides Vikas, the Apex court had awarded 25-year jail terms to his cousin Vishal Yadav and a third co-convict Sukhdev

On October 3 last year, the apex court had modified the 30-year jail term handed down to the Yadavs by the Delhi High Court. The Supreme Court instead had given them 25 year imprisonment for the offence of murder and five year jail term for causing destruction of evidence would run concurrently and not consecutively.

It had also scaled down the jail term of 25 years to 20 years to be awarded to Sukhdev by holding that the jail term for separate offences would not run consecutively, but concurrently.

The top court had earlier dismissed the appeals of the men against their convictions in the case for kidnapping Katara on the intervening night of February 16-17, 2002 before killing him for allegedly having an affair with Bharti Yadav, sister of Vikas.

The apex court had concurred with the findings of the high court that the offence fell under the category of honour killing, deserving harsh punishment.

The high court had on April 2, 2014, upheld the verdict of the lower court, by describing the offence as “honour killing” stemming from a “deeply-entrenched belief” in the caste system.