Kollam (Ker): A sessions court in Kerala on Wednesday awarded double life sentence in the Uthra murder case to the victim's husband for killing his wife using a cobra, saying the crime was "definitely diabolic, cruel, heinous and dastardly" and committed with "unparalleled wickedness".
Despite such strong observations, Additional Sessions Judge-VI Manoj M was of the view that the case did not fall in the rarest of the rare category for award of death sentence and instead the court awarded life imprisonment to Sooraj S Kumar for killing his 25-year-old wife Uthra using a cobra.
The second life sentence was awarded for his initial attempt to kill her using the same method.
However, the court directed that the life terms would start only after he serves 17 years -- 10 years for poisoning his wife and seven years for destruction of evidence -- and as a result he would end up serving a major portion of his remaining life behind bars. "The accused (Kumar) is sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life and pay a fine of Rs 5,00,000 for the offense under Section 302 (murder) IPC. The accused is sentenced to undergo life imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs 50,000 for offence under Section 307 (attempt to murder) IPC. The accused is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and pay a fine of Rs 25,000 for the offence under Section 328 (poisoning) IPC.
The accused is also sentenced to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for seven years and to pay a fine of Rs 10,000 for the offence under Section 201 (destruction of evidence) of IPC," the court said and issued a warrant for sending the convict to Central Prison, Thiruvananthapuram, where he now would be spending a major portion of his remaining life.
It further said that the sentences under Sections 328 and 201, which are term sentences, shall run first, consecutively and thereafter, the sentences of imprisonment for life shall run concurrently.