Can’t give death penalty to Vikas Yadav, says SC

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, October 9

The Supreme Court today turned down a plea for awarding death penalty to Vikas Yadav, son of Uttar Pradesh politician DP Yadav, and his cousin Vishal for killing 23-year-old Nitish Katara in 2002 for being friendly with Bharti, sister of Vikas.

On February 6 this year, the Delhi High Court had sentenced them to 30 years in jail by enhancing the life term (which normally meant 14 years) awarded by the trial court. Katara’s mother Nilam had come to the SC seeking further enhancement of the sentence to death penalty or imprisonment for the rest of their lives.

A Bench comprising Justice JS Khehar and Justice R Banumathi rejected the plea, observing that the crime could not be described as the “rarest of rare or an honour killing that shocked the collective conscience of society, warranting the award of death penalty.”

It was not an honour killing as neither the caste or the family background of the victim would be accepted as “bad” by society, the Bench explained, obviously referring to the fact that Nitish was a business executive and was the son of IAS officer Nishit Katara.

He was last seen with the convicts in a vehicle being driven by Vikas in the Delhi region on the night of February 16/17, 2002. The HC had termed it as honour killing.  

Bharti had been allowed by her family to go to the Kataras’ house only a few days earlier to invite them to her sister’s wedding which showed that the Yadav family had accepted their friendship. Probably, what infuriated the convicts to murder the victim was the “manner in which the couple danced” at the wedding from where Nitish was abducted, the Bench felt.

The SC also pointed out that the murder had been committed with one single blow on the head without any maiming or other forms of torture.

The HC sentenced them to 25 years without any remission for committing the murder and five years for destroying evidence and clarified that the two terms would run consecutively. Such a long jail term was necessary for their reformation, it said. 

The Yadav cousins’ appeal against the HC verdict is pending in the SC.