Murder due to sudden provocation not rarest of rare: court

On the grounds that murders committed on sudden and grave provocation do not amount to rarest of rare cases, the Special CBI court today awarded life imprisonment to Rajesh and Nupur Talwar. The CBI’s argument that the “circumstances of the double murder” deserved the death penalty was not accepted by the court, which on Monday convicted the dentist couple of murdering their teenage daughter Aarushi and their domestic help Hemraj on the intervening night of 15-16 May 2008.[caption id=“attachment_1251561” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Nupur Talwar arrives at the special CBI Court from the jail in Ghaziabad on Tuesday. PTI[/caption] Speaking to the media outside the court, public prosecutor RK Saini said he was satisfied with the judgement and the order on sentencing. “It is only in exceptional cases that the court awards the death penalty,” Saini said. Tanveer Ahmed Mir, defence counsel for the Talwars while opposing the CBI’s plea had argued that the crime did not fall under the rarest of rare cases. “The court’s order on life sentence is based on its affirmative finding that murders were committed as a result of ‘sudden and grave provocation’ and therefore does not fall in the rarest of rare cases,” Mir said. Commenting on Monday’s judgement convicting on Talwars, Mir said, that “it was in direct contradiction of the Supreme Court judgements” that puts the burden of proof on the prosecution and not the accused. ( Read full report here ) He added that the findings of the judgement were “based on assumptions” and that it “wrongly appreciated” Hemraj’s presence in Aarushi’s room on the night of the murders. The public prosecutor responding to questions on the defence’s decision to appeal against the judgement, said, “We have no doubt that the high court will uphold the conviction.” Talwars have been sentenced for life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000 each for murder, five years and a fine of Rs 5,000 each for destruction of evidence and one year and Rs 2,000 to Rajesh for misleading the investigation by filing wrong FIR.