SC upholds Vikas Yadav's conviction in Nitish Katara murder case

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the conviction of Vikas Yadav and Sukhdev Yadav alias Pehlwan in the Nitish Katara murder case but issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on the quantum of sentence.

Nitish Katara, son of an Indian Administrative Service officer, was killed by Vikas Yadav, his cousin Vishal Yadav and Pehlwan on the intervening night of February 16 and 17, 2002, after they abducted him from a marriage party in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad.

The Yadav brothers were opposed to Katara's friendship with their sister Bharti.

Upholding the conviction of Vikas and Sukhdev, an apex court bench of Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel issued notice on the quantum of sentence, telling their counsel: "We can give you indulgence so far as quantum of sentence is concerned."

Upholding the conviction, the apex court said that high court order upholding the conviction does not call for any intervention.

As the counsel for Vikas Yadav laboured to persuade the court that the chain of events to establish the offence and convict his client was not complete, the court asked him, "Show us something glaring that tells us that the findings of the two trial courts and the high court don't stand scrutiny".

At another point of time, the court asked the lawyer, "You show us something that pricks our (judicial) conscience."

The court told Vikas's lawyer that Nitish Katara was last seen with Vikas and Vishal Yadav on the evening of February 16, 2002, and he was found dead on February 17 morning. "It is for you to tell where did you take him, dropped him or left him," the court remarked.

Vikas Yadav was given an enhanced 30-year jail term without remission by the Delhi High Court for murdering Katara, including 25 years for murder and another five years for destruction of evidence.

Sukhdev Yadav too was awarded an enhanced life sentence by the high court and is undergoing 20 years in jail without remission.

Hearing on the notice on enhanced sentence would take place after six weeks.

The high court had held that they "do not deserve to remission of the life sentence imposed on them" and the sentence for murder and destruction of evidence would run consecutively.

The high court on April 2, 2014, upheld the 2008 trial court judgment that sentenced the three to life imprisonment in the case described as "honour killing".