Supreme Court commutes sentence in honour killings case

The Supreme Court (SC) has reduced to 25 years the death sentence given to one Dilip Narayan Tiwari and his two friends for killing Tiwari's brother-in-law and his three relatives in Andheri, Mumbai, five years ago.

Tiwari wanted to take revenge on his brother-in-law Prabhu, a low caste Keralite, for marrying his sister Sushma.  Tiwari and his friends, Manoj Paswan and Sunil Ramashray Yadav, attacked the couple and their relatives at their Andheri house. 

The SC underlined its abhorrence of caste crime, but reduced the sentence saying ``If Dilip became the victim of his wrong but genuine caste considerations, it would not justify the death sentence''.

A bench of Justices VS Sirpurkar and Deepak Verma said, “The murders were the outcome of a social issue like marriage with a person of so-called lower caste. However, a time has come for us to consider these social issues as relevant, while considering the death sentence in circumstances such as these”.

The judges further said “the psyche of the offender in the background of a social issue like an inter-caste inter-community marriage, though unjustified, would have to be considered in the peculiar circumstances of this case''.

“The vicious grip of the caste, community, religion, though totally unjustified, is a stark reality,” the judges said. In an attempt to analyse Dilip's mind, the court said, “It is commonly known that when the younger sister does something unusual, in this case an inter-caste marriage, society holds the elder brother responsible for not stopping such affair.”