’93 blasts case: Arguments on sentences go on

The prosecution, on Friday, continued with arguments on the quantum of punishment which the special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court will pass against the six convicts in the 1993 blast case.

The prosecution read out the judgment passed by the Supreme Court while awarding death penalty to Yakub Memon.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) counsel Deepak Salvi, in his arguments, said Memon’s judgment would assist in awarding punishment to the convicts in the present case. “Ultimately it becomes the duty of the courts to award proper sentence with regard to the nature of the offense and the manner in which it was executed, or committed, etc. The courts should impose a punishment befitting the crime to accurately reflect public abhorrence of it. It is the nature and the gravity of the crime, and not the criminal, which is germane for consideration of appropriate punishment in a criminal trial,” the judgment stated.

Salvi further read, “The survival of an orderly society demands the extinction of the life of a person who is proved to be a menace to the social order. Thus, the courts for the purpose of deciding just and appropriate sentence to be awarded for an offense, have to delicately balance the aggravating and the mitigating factors and circumstances in which a crime has been committed, in a dispassionate manner.”