Life sentence for maid and two others for the 2010 murder of aged employer.
A Delhi court has awarded life imprisonment to a domestic help along with her husband and a friend for robbing and killing her employer, saying it will be "failing in its duty if appropriate punishment was not awarded for the crime".
Additional Sessions Judge Yashwant Kumar refused to take a lenient view on the quantum of sentence saying, "It is the nature and gravity of the crime and not the criminal which are germane for consideration of appropriate punishment in a criminal trial."
"The court will be failing in its duty if appropriate punishment is not awarded for a crime which has been committed not only against the individual victim but also against the society to which the criminal and the victim belong," the judge said.
"Every murder with conspiracy and robbery is a heinous crime but awarding of sentence other than the sentence of death is the general rule now," the court said.
The court had on September 30, convicted Uttar Pradesh residents Sangeeta, her husband Anoop Kumar and his friend Vijay Kumar for offences under sections 302/34 (murder with common intention) and 392/34 (robbery) of the IPC.
Along with the life term, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 8,000 on each of them.
While holding them guilty for the murder of 70-year-old Ram Avatar Gupta, a resident of Ashok Vihar here, the court had said the "prosecution has been able to prove the circumstances which unerringly point to the guilt of accused persons with a motive of robbery and murder."
According to prosecution, Sangeeta had entered into a conspiracy with her husband and Vijay to rob and murder her employer.
On November 18, 2010, Sangeeta entered the residence and allowed her husband and Kumar into the house after which they inflicted knife blows on Gupta, leading to his death, it said.
After killing him, they robbed cash, electronic items, foreign currency and cell phones from the house and fled from the spot, it said.
The police managed to trace them after they began using the victim's robbed cell phones.