BENGALURU: A man in his sixties shot his son, who eventually died of bullet injuries, but the killer father had escaped jail as the lower court let him off on benefit of doubt during trial. The incident was bizarre as the father, a womaniser, kept demanding money from his son to satisfy his urges and when refused, he started misbehaving with his daughter-in-law!
Despite repeated requests and warnings by his son, the senior citizen made several attempts at outraging the modesty of his daughter-in-law. During an argument, the senior citizen, Erregowda, shot and killed his son with a single barrel gun.
Despite a strong case, the prosecution failed to prove the offence against the accused, Eregowda, in the lower court. After his acquittal, the prosecution approached the high court seeking conviction for murder.
The prosecution submitted before the high court that the lower court is not justified in rejecting the evidence of the wife of the deceased and her sister who were present during the incident in entirety. Erregowda’s advocate had argued before the lower court that both the witnesses were planted by the police as eyewitnesses.
“If at all the two eye witnesses were really present at the time of the incident, the two ought to have sustained gun shot injuries because of the scattered pellets.
The very fact that none of them have sustained any injuries, their presence on the spot is not probable. There is also delay in lodging the FIR and such delay is caused by the police only to foist a false case against the accused and further, the ballistic report is not helpful as the police did not send adequate material for examination to the expert,” the advocate had argued. But the high court dismissed these arguments.
The high court ordered, “We are the clear opinion that this is not a fit case to convict the accused under 302 IPC (punishment for murder). The incident has occurred in a fit of anger and therefore, the accused shall be convicted for the offence under Sec 304 II of the IPC (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder).”
It added that the accused is already 67 to 68 years old and has suffered certain period in custody during the course of investigation and trial, the accused is sentenced to undergo imprisonment for seven years.
