New Delhi: Observing that instances of atrocities aga24p24inst Scheduled Castes have not abated even after 71 years of Independence, the Delhi high court on Friday sentenced to life imprisonment 12 members of dominant Jat community and 21 other convicts to varying jail terms in the 2010 Mirchpur dalit killing case of Haryana in which a 60-year-old man and his physically-challenged teenaged daughter were burnt alive.
A two-judge bench of Justices S. Muralidhar and I.S. Mehta in its judgment on Friday overturned the acquittal of 20 persons in the case while upholding the conviction of 13 accused by the trial court and enhanced the punishment of some of the convicts.
Following the caste violence in Hisar district, over 150 dalit families had fled the village and taken shelter at a temple in Delhi after their houses were torched.
In its 209-page judgement, the court said, “The incidents that took place in Mirchpur between April 19 and 21, 2010 serve as yet another grim reminder of the complete absence of two things in Indian society as noted by Dr B.R. Ambedkar when he tabled the final draft of the Constitution of India before the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949. One was equality and the other fraternity.”
It was only after the Supreme Court pulled up the Haryana police that the accused were booked after four months of the incident. The apex court later transferred the case from Hisar to Delhi to ensure fair trial on the plea of families of victims.
Additional sessions judge Kamini Lau, who first asked the state government to appoint special public prosecutor to conduct the trial, later ordered transfer of the accused to Tihar from a Hisar jail. A total of 98 accused were shifted. Out of 103, five were juveniles and one is out on bail.
With Friday’s verdict, 12 out of 33 convicts are sentenced to life imprisonment for IPC offences, including murder and committing mischief by fire, and offences under the SC/ST (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act.
The high court verdict came on the appeal of 13 people challenging their conviction and sentence by a trial court in the case. The victims and the police had also appealed in the high court seeking enhancement of punishment awarded to the convicts and acquittal.
