Kozhikode: The additional principal sessions’ court here will pronounce the sentence for the 12 accused found guilty in the TPC murder case on Tuesday.
The court on Thursday considered the views of the 12 convicts, defence counsel and prosecution on the punishment to be awarded.
The prosecution said the first 11 accused should be awarded capital punishment as their crime was ‘brutal,’ ‘diabolic,’ ‘dastardly’ and had shocked the conscience of society. “Life imprisonment for them is inadequate,” said special public prosecutor C.K. Sreedharan, who also demanded maximum punishment for the 31st accused, Pradeepan, who was charged with destroying evidence.
The prosecution said the case should be considered as the ‘rarest among rare’ cases and said the first seven accused are hardened criminals and beyond the possibility of reformation and rehabilitation.
Apart from the first seven accused, the assailant gang members who murdered T.P. Chandrasekharan, the other three accused, CPM Kunnumakkara local committee member K.C. Ramachandran (A8), Panur area committee member P.K. Kunhananthan (A 13), Kadakanpoyil former branch secretary Trouser Manoj, who have been found guilty of criminal conspiracy, should also be awarded death penalty, the prosecutors argued.
They submitted that the assailant gang carried out the orders from these conspirators and hence they also deserved to be awarded capital punishment. The defence counsel, while quoting from the recent observations of the Supreme Court, said the murder of TPC could not be considered as the ‘rarest among rare’ cases.
They argued that this case failed to satisfy two of the three parameters put forward by the Supreme Court. If the court has to consider death penalty, the case should satisfy three conditions-- crime case, criminal case and RR case.
The crime case considers the way the crime had been carried out, its nature and its social impact. Criminal case considers the character, background and criminal records of the accused. The court has to consider one a criminal only if he or she has been convicted in a case and had repeated that offence.
In the RR case, the act of crime should be the rarest among the rare. The defence counsel said the TPC murder case failed to satisfy both the criminal case and the RR case. “None of the accused has been convicted in any case prior to this and they could not be called hardened criminals. All the accused could be reformed and rehabilitated, the counsel said.
