On Monday, the Supreme Court, in its important decision, stayed the death sentence awarded to Santosh Kumar Singh in the Priyadarshini Mattoo rape and murder case. The court has also issued a notice to the CBI in this matter. Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan himself headed the SC bench in this case.

Santosh had filed a mandatory criminal appeal in the Supreme Court. His lawyer had challenged the death sentence awarded to him in the 11-year-old case. Now, the people are waiting to see the CBI’s move as it presented its defense in the case.

Santosh had challenged the Delhi High Court (HC) judgment by claiming that his acquittal by the trial court was correct and proper in the case. He further appealed that the observation of the HC while convicting him did not find any basis against the evidence on record.

Earlier, the High Court had conducted a daily hearing in the case after massive public outcry. On October 27, 2006, the HC had reversed the trial court’s decision acquitting him of the offence of raping and murdering Priyadarshini Mattoo.

Justices R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin while setting aside the lower court’s verdict, had termed it as ‘perverse’ and sentenced Singh to death by saying the accused deserved nothing less than this.

But the matter of concern is that has CBI already decided to give clemency to Santosh Singh? The IBNLive has reported that CBI had circulated an official booklet last week to the media. In this booklet Singh was stated to have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

It was a clear mistake figured in CBI’s official document at the time when public is so conscious about the verdict in the case. The PTI has first brought the issue to the light and CBI officials refused to react in this matter.

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