New Delhi:
Nitish Katara's killers will not hang, the Supreme Court reasserted on Monday, rejecting the Delhi government's petition for death sentence for Vikas Yadav and Vishal Yadav.
But the court asked the government to help in deciding whether their life term should be for 30 years or till death.
"We will examine whether it should be 30 years or between life and death," the court said as it posted the case for final hearing in January 2016.
Last month, the Supreme Court had also dismissed the petition of Nitish Katara's mother Neelam Katara.
"We had already dismissed the complainant's plea for death sentence. So we can't interfere," the court said.
Nitish Katara, a 25-year-old executive, was kidnapped and burnt to death in Ghaziabad near Delhi in 2002. He was dating Bharti Yadav, the daughter of politician DP Yadav. The couple was at a wedding when Mr Katara was taken away by Bharti's brother Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal.
In February this year, the Delhi High Court had enhanced the life imprisonment of the Yadav cousins to 25 years in jail without any remission and an additional five years for destruction of evidence.