A woman along with her mother and two brothers has been sentenced to a three-year imprisonment by a Delhi court for unintentionally killing her husband.
Additional Sessions Judge V K Dahiya awarded the jail term to 38-year-old Nibha Sharma, her 65-year-old mother Vimla Sharma and two brothers Deepak and Dalip, who were in their twenties, for the offence saying they had the knowledge that they were likely to cause injury which could cause victim Krishan Kumar's death but they had no intention to kill him.
"I am satisfied that requisite intention cannot be attributed to the accused persons. But in the circumstances..., accused have caused injuries on the head of the victim and he sustained fracture in his head and, therefore, they be attributed with the knowledge that they were likely to cause an injury which was likely to cause death.
"From the evidence on the record and the established circumstances, it is not possible to say with certainty that the accused intended to cause death of the victim. It appeared to me that the accused can only be clothed with the knowledge that the injury which they were causing was likely to cause the death of victim but without any intention to cause his death or to cause such bodily injury as is likely to cause death," the judge said.
The court held Dwarka residents, Nibha, Vimla, Deepak and Dalip guilty under Section 304 (II) (unintentional killing) of the IPC. The court, however, allowed their plea to suspend their sentence till April 30 for filing an appeal against their conviction and punishment.
As per the police, the incident took place in September 2011 when Krishan's mother-in-law and brothers-in-law beat him up. Krishan was drunk at that time.
One of his brothers-in-law thrashed him against the wall due to which Krishan started bleeding and when his wife Nibha came there, she also encouraged her brothers and mother to beat him up and said that he should be finished, it said.
When an eye witness tried to interfere, the accused asked him to go away saying it was their family affair, it said, adding a PCR call was made and Krishan was taken to hospital.
Later on, the victim was brought home and he died after few days of the incident.
According to the doctors, the cause of death was head injury.
Seeking a lenient view, Vimla said she was aged and a widow while Nibha submitted that she has to take care of her two children. Deepak and Dalip sought a sympathetic view saying they were young and that they be released on probation.
