LOKEMAN SHAH Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On the day of Holi celebrations, seventeen years ago in Calcutta, (as the city was then known) an infuriated motley mob carmined one street not with "Gulal" (which is often used by ecstatic celebrants) but with human blood. They ran berserk blinded by fommunal frenzy and unleashed a terror of murder spree on 18-3-1984, along Fatehpur Village Road, which was within the limits of Garden Reach Police Station. Two among the innocent casualties of the gory episode were a young IPS officer and his security guard, both of whom were violently murdered.

(2.) Four persons, out of a number of accused arraigned before the Sessions Court for murder and other allied offences, were convicted and sentenced to death by the trial Court at the first round. But on a retrial as ordered by the High Court the Sessions Court confined the conviction to two persons (the appellants herein) and awarded the sentence of death to both of them. A Division Bench of the High Court of Calcutta, while confirming the conviction of both, has chosen to uphold the death penalty for appellant Nasim alias Naso, and altered the sentence passed on appellant Lokeman Shah from death to life imprisonment, besides lesser sentences for lesser counts of offences. Both of them have filed appeal before this Court by special leave.

(3.) State of West Bengal is not prepared to spare Lokeman Shah from extreme penalty for murdering two of its police personnel and hence the State has filed an appeal for enhancement of the sentence to the extreme penalty. As we heard both the appeals together we have the advantage of disposing of both of them together by this common judgment.