RAJIV SAPRA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These three appeals have been preferred by the appellants namely Rajiv Sapra, Satpal Sethi, Naresh Bhardwaj and Amrish Bhatnagar assailing the judgment dated 5th August, 2000 and order on sentence dated 9th August, 2000 whereby they have been convicted for committing the offence punishable under Sections 304(II)/308/120-B IPC and sentenced as under:- <IMG>JUDGEMENT_128_LAWS(DLH)8_2017.jpg</IMG>

(2.) During the course of hearing, Mr. N. Hariharan, learned Senior Advocate for appellants Rajiv Sapra and Naresh Bhardwaj, Mr.Jayant K.Sud, learned Senior Advocate for appellant Satpal Sethi and Mr. R.M. Tufail, learned counsel for the appellant Amrish Bhatnagar, on instructions, submit that all the four appellants are not challenging their conviction for committing the offence punishable under Section 304(II)/308/120-B IPC and would like to confine their submissions on the quantum of sentence only.

(3.) On behalf of appellants, it is submitted that this is the infamous SURA case wherein on the eve of Diwali i.e. on 5th November, 1991, many persons who consumed 'KARPOOR ASHAV' had either lost their vision or died for which in all 254 FIRs were registered and equal number of charge-sheets were filed. A Commission headed by Justice Jagdish Chandra was constituted and the appellants continued appearing before the Commission. The report was submitted by the Commission after about eight months. Thereafter a Special Court was created to try these cases and FIR No.394/1991, PS Ashok Vihar was ordered to be treated as the main case. The trial before the Special Court continued on day to day basis for about seven years. Thousands of witnesses were examined and throughout till the judgment was pronounced on 5th August, 2000, all the appellants had been regularly appearing before the learned Trial Court. All the appellants had remained in custody for a period ranging from three years to four years. This case had ruined all the appellants not only on social front but also economically and they had not been able to even take care of their respective families because of their long incarceration and regular appearance before the Court specially constituted to try this case where trial has been conducted on day to day basis.