Aligarh: In a surprising verdict, the Aligarh district court has handed a life imprisonment sentence to an 85-year-old man in a four-decade-old murder case, along with imposing a fine of Rs 20,000 thousand on the accused.
Speaking to ThePrint, J.P. Rajput, Additional District Government Counsel in Aligarh, said that a woman named Chandramukhi from Nagla Chura village in the Iglas Police Station area had lodged an FIR on 4 June, 1983. She accused her brother-in-law, Jaipal, of murdering her husband, Raghunath, during a dispute over land ownership.
According to Chandramukhi’s complaint, her father-in-law, Rewti Singh, had divided his land equally between his two sons, Jaipal and Raghunath. Jaipal was not satisfied and wanted to exchange his tract of land with Raghunath’s land, but Raghunath refused to accede to his demands, leading to several fights between the two brothers.
On 3 June 1983, Raghunath returned home from a visit to the village flour mill, accompanied by Sohan Singh, a local resident. As Raghunath stepped outside his house, Sohan signalled Jaipal to attack him. Jaipal charged at Raghunath and brutally beat him with a stick, causing severe injuries. Raghunath succumbed to his injuries the following day at JN Medical College.
Both Jaipal and Sohan were named in the FIR, but Sohan passed away during the trial. The case had been pending with no progress since August 1984, when the Allahabad High Court stayed the proceedings.
In March this year, the defendants requested the court to reopen the case, leading to a day-to-day hearing order from the High Court in June. The trial featured 17 witnesses, but due to the passage of time, several had passed away or could not be located. Secondary witnesses confirmed the postmortem during the original proceedings, based on which the ADJ (I) court sentenced Jaipal Singh to life imprisonment.
However, this is not the first such case where an elderly individual has received a life sentence in their twilight years. In June of this year, the Firozabad District Court sentenced a 90-year-old man named Ganga Sahay to life imprisonment for his involvement in a 42-year-old case related to the mass murder of Dalits in a village.
Commenting on such verdicts, social activist Vijay Upadhyay expressed that while these rulings may give the appearance of justice being served, in reality, they often amount to little more than symbolic gestures.
Recalling a similar incident from 2020, Upadhyay highlighted that 11 retired policemen had been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Mathura District Court for their involvement in the fake encounter of Raja Man Singh of Bharatpur, a case that spanned 35 years. Many of the convicted policemen were frail and elderly, making it likely that they would pass away before their appeals could be resolved within the Indian justice system.
In all these cases, whether involving the murderers of Raja Man Singh, Jaiveer Singh, or Ganga Sahay, the accused individuals managed to live long and productive lives after committing heinous crimes. The intricate workings of the Indian justice system provide them with numerous opportunities for appeals, potentially resulting in some not living long enough to witness the execution of their sentences, Upadhyay added.