Katara case: police asked to give reasons for enhancement of

The Delhi High Court today asked the city police to provide the "aggravating and mitigating" factors which could help it determine the sentence to be awarded to UP politician D P Yadav's son Vikas and two others who have been convicted for killing Nitish Katara.
A bench of justices Gita Mittal and J R Midha directed Delhi Police to "cull down" all the circumstances under which they, along with Nitish's mother Neelam Katara, are seeking the gallows or an enhanced life sentence for Vikas, Vishal Yadav and Sukhdev Pehalwan.
"You (police) cull down all aggravating and mitigating circumstances to show us (high court bench) how your case is different from others to enhance punishment of life term to death sentence.

"Give us a detail balance sheet, showing the reasons for awarding them the punishment which you are requesting for," the bench said after Delhi Police today commenced its arguments on the sentence to be awarded to the three convicts.
The court has directed the police to provide them the chart by August 1, before advancing their arguments further.
Earlier, the victim's mother, who concluded her arguments had demanded death for the three terming their offence to be of the rarest of rare.

"The trial court as well as this court have already held that this is a case of honour killing. I want to add one thing that the honour killing falls under the the rarest of rare category of cases warranting imposition of death penalty," the counsel for Neelam Katara had told the bench.

Seeking enhancement of the sentence, Delhi Police counsel said there is no special reason in the convicts' favour to spare death sentence.
Vikas, Vishal and Sukhdev Pehalwan are serving life term for abducting and killing Nitish Katara, a business executive and son of an IAS officer, on the intervening night of February 16-17, 2002. They did not approve of the victim's affair with Bharti, daughter of D P Yadav.