The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to the Gujarat government on a petition challenging the Gujarat High Court’s order, convicting the accused in a homicide case.
The Bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari passed the order on a petition filed by Vijay alias Virendra Maganlal Ninama, challenging the Gujarat High Court order, which sustained his conviction under relevant sections of IPC and the Bombay Police Act, as passed by the trial court.
Counsel of the petitioner Minakshi Vij, Advocate-on-Record (AOR) stated that the appellant has undergone seven years of sentence, when the actual sentence appears to be of six years. Counsel Archana Pathak appeared for the state of Gujarat and submitted that this sentence is of life imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, the appellants and other co-accused, armed with deadly weapons, took up a fight with Dinesh Bhai and later killed him with an axe. They also attacked the victim’s mother.
The High Court had dismissed the appeal of the appellant for being devoid of merit. It said, “So far as the version and contradiction in the oral evidence and the medical evidence is concerned, by now it is settled proposition of law that the oral evidence of the witnesses led before the Court should be given more weightage than the evidence of the Doctor.
“After scrutinizing the oral evidence, we are of the opinion that the Additional Sessions Judge has not committed an error in believing the evidence of the material witnesses to record findings of guilt against the appeal,” it added.