SC upholds life imprisonment for soldier

The Supreme Court has upheld the life imprisonment awarded to a soldier for killing a senior JCO who had tried to sodomise him hours before the incident and had beaten and humiliated him for refusing to satisfy his lust.

Rejecting the contention of the jawan B.D. Khunte that he acted under provocation, the apex court bench of Justice T.S. Thakur, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice R. Banumathi in their judgment recently said that there was a difference between provocation and revenge.

Subedar Randhir Singh had taken Jawan Khunte June 28, 2006, at 2 p.m. to a storeroom and tried to sodomise him. Khunte was beaten and humiliated for not agreeing to his demands. The same day in the evening when Khunte was on guard duty, he saw Randhir Singh coming in his direction. Khunte asked him to stop but Randhir Singh continued moving. At this point Khunte shot him, firing 18 bullets and killing Singh on the spot.

"The contention that the daytime incident being such that the appellant (Jawan) could get a grave provocation, the moment he saw the deceased (Subedar Randhir Singh) coming towards the place where he was on guard duty, also has not appealed to us", the court said.

Pronouncing the judgment, Justice Thakur said, "The appellant (Khunte) may have been angry with the deceased (Randhir Singh) for his act of misdemeanour. But any such anger would only constitute a motive for taking revenge upon the deceased. It could not be described as a grave and sudden provocation for which deceased could have been shot the moment he came in front of the appellant."

The court said this while rejecting the contention by Khunte that his case be treated under Exception 1 of Section 300 IPC under which a culpable homicide is not murder if the offender in the wake of grave and sudden provocation loses self control and causes the death of any other person by mistake or accident.

Khunte had joined the army July 30, 2004 and was posted at Razdan post in Baramulla in Kashmir where the incident occurred. After being sentenced to life imprisonment coupled with dismissal from service, Khunte moved the Armed Forces Tribunal which upheld his conviction and sentencing. The high court too concurred with the findings of the tribunal.