Lifer for man who killed daughter

THE SUPREME Court on Wednesday sentenced a man to life imprisonment for killing his daughter who had eloped and married a man of a lower caste.

The bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and A M Khanwilkar rejected the convict’s plea to let him withdraw his appeal to avoid a court notice on why his punishment should not be enhanced from 10 years in jail to life term for murder.

Thekarnatakahighcourthad sentenced Gandi Doddabasappa to10yearsinjailunderthecharge ofculpablehomicidenotamountingtomurder.whilesendinghim to jail, the high court set aside the trialcourt’sorderofacquittingdoddabasappaofthechargesofkillinghisdaughternearhermatrimonial home in October 2003. The victimwaspregnantwhenherfather attacked her with a sickle.

However, when Doddabasappa moved an appeal, the apex court bench issued him a notice asking why his punishment should not be enhanced since his case fell squarely under Section 302(murder)andnotsection304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC.

Doddabasappa’s counsel Kiran Suri sought to withdraw his appeal so that the notice for enhancing the punishment would get disposed of but the bench turned down the plea and said it woulddecidethecaseonitsmerit.

It noted that there was ample evidence to prove culpability of the accused for the crime of “honour killing” and that the high court had wrongly treated this as a case covered under Section 304.

Representing Karnataka, additional advocate-general Devadatt Kamat submitted that the crime in question was a clear case of honour killing and that the apex court had held in recent cases that strictest punishment must be given.

The bench, concurring with Kamat, held that the accused had a strong motive to kill his daughter. It added that Doddabasappa’s case was covered under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC.