Security officer who killed judge’s wife, son gets death
Mahipal Singh, personal security officer of an additional sessions judge, had killed his wife and son at a market in Sector 49
GURUGRAM: A court on Friday awarded the death sentence to a former personal security officer (PSO) of an additional sessions judge (ASJ) after convicting him of killing the wife and son of the judge at a market in Sector 49 of Gurugram in October, 2018.
Mahipal Singh opened fire at ASJ Krishan Kant’s wife Ritu Kant and son Dhruva Kant after a heated argument at the busy market.
“As a government servant, he had the responsibility to protect them. Instead, he breached their trust and gunned them down,” additional sessions judge Sudhir Parmar said on Friday while awarding the death penalty.
GURUGRAM: A local court on Friday sentenced 32-year-old Mahipal Singh to death for shooting the wife and son of an additional sessions judge in broad daylight at the Arcadia Market in Sector 49 on October 13, 2018. The court had held him guilty on Thursday, nearly 13 months after the trial in the case began.
Singh was attached, in the capacity of a personal security officer, to additional sessions judge Krishan Kant and was escorting his family at the time of the incident. He has been lodged in Bhondsi jail since the incident, the police said.
While awarding the capital punishment, Sudhir Parmar, the additional sessions judge, observed that when “protectors turn predator, there appears to be no mitigating circumstances for consideration on the question of sentence”. The case was of the “rarest of rare” category, the order stated.
Parmar pronounced the death sentence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), rigorous imprisonment of five years with a fine of ₹10,000 under Section 201 (destruction of evidence) of the IPC and three years with a fine of ₹5,000 under the Arms Act.
Vishal Gupta, counsel for Kant, said, “The death reference now, as per the norm, requires to be confirmed by the high court. There is no reason why this order will not be confirmed by the HC.”
The defence counsel, Prem Shankar Sharma, had earlier told the court that Mahipal Singh had taken the family of the judge to Arcadia Market on the day of the incident. When a scuffle broke out over a painting, shots were fired accidentally, he said. He said he would challenge the order in the high court.
In its 140-page order, the court observed, “Considering all the above facts, I tend to agree with what has been argued by learned public prosecutor and hence, prayer for leniency made on behalf of the convict is declined. The kind of act leading to murder of wife and son of a judicial officer has far reaching consequences. It has not confined its adverse effects on the society alone but is fraught with wider ramification of sending shivers down the spine of holders of judicial office.”
The court stated that the incident had defamed the police, who, at times, protect the people even at the cost of their lives. “When protectors turn predators (perpetrators of crime), there appears to be no mitigating circumstances for consideration on the question of sentence. The case squarely falls within the ambit of ‘rarest of rare case’.”
He said that the “cold-blooded and remorseless act of grotesque killing” by a security guard sans anyprovocationwhatsoever,satisfy both the ‘crime test’ as well as the ‘criminal test’.