BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday upheld the orders of a lower court, which had sentenced cab driver Shiva Kumar with life imprisonment, after convicting him in Pratibha murder case. While ruling out capital punishment, the high court has affirmed the lower court order sentencing him with life imprisonment till death for committing murder. He had approached the High Court challenging the October 6, 2010 lower court order.
Ruling out the rarest of rare element in the murder case, a lower court had sentenced him to life imprisonment till death for committing rape and murder. The cab driver, Shiva Kumar, was found guilty of raping, kidnapping and killing Pratibha Srikantamurthy, a BPO employee on the outskirts of the city in Dec, 2005.
He was sentenced with life imprisonment till death, along with 10 years rigorous imprisonment and Rs 10,000 fine for the charge of kidnapping under Section 366 of the IPC.
The 11th Fast Track Court had sentenced the driver with another 10 years rigorous imprisonment for rape under Section 376 of the IPC and a fine of Rs 20,000.
Order stayed
A division bench of the high court has stayed the order of a single judge bench which directed the Central Crime Branch to register an FIR against BTM Layout corporator K. Devadas for allegedly not disclosing criminal cases while filing nomination for the recently held BBMP polls. The court had ordered CCB to probe the case and submit its report within 90 days.
Dr G case
The High Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the state government following a petition filed by former police constable, and president of Akhila Karnataka Police Maha Sangha V. Shashidhar, seeking directions to the Chief Secretary and the Personal Secretary to the Governor, to consider his representation seeking disqualification of Home Minister Dr G Parameshwar as per Article 191 (1)(a) of the Constitution of India, since he being a LIC Agent, Agriculture Consultant and Educationist, which is office of profit.
