Supreme Court Upholds Police Officer’s Life Sentence for Killing Wife’s ‘Lover’ at Station

The top court refused to interfere with the judgments of the trial court and the Delhi High Court. A bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Rajesh Bindal rejected the plea of convict Surender Singh, who claimed that the victim had come to kill him and the offence was committed in self-defence, therefore not constituting murder under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Justice Dhulia emphasized that the nature of the weapon used, the number of gunshots fired, and the location of the gunshots all indicated that the appellant was determined to kill the deceased. The court dismissed the plea, stating that the case was nothing but a case of murder.

It vacated an interim order granting bail to the convict and directed him to surrender before the trial court within four weeks. The victim, who was married to the convict’s first cousin and was also his neighbor, was allegedly in an illicit relationship with the convict’s wife.

The prosecution asserted that the victim visited the Mayur Vihar police station where the convict was posted, and the two were last seen in a conversation before the convict killed the victim with his official 9-mm carbine. The convict’s claims of self-defence or a case of grave and sudden provocation were rejected by the court.

The court upheld the evidence, including the motive of the appellant and the execution of the crime at the police station, as indicative of murder. It emphasized the correlation of injuries with the eyewitness testimony and concluded that the case was a clear instance of murder committed inside the police station.

The judgment was final, and the appellant was directed to surrender and undergo the remaining part of his sentence. The case was deemed a brazen murder, and the convict’s plea for a lesser charge was dismissed.