In a controversial ruling,the Supreme Court today said that the caste taunts suffered by an offender in an honour killing need to be factored in before pronouncing a verdict on him. .Caste is a concept which grips a person before his birth and does not leave him even after his death. The vicious grip of the caste,community,religion,though totally unjustified,is a stark reality. The psyche of the offender in the background of a social issue like an inter-caste-community marriage,though wholly unjustified,would have to be considered in the peculiar circumstances, a Division Bench of Justices V S Sirpurkar and Deepak Verma said. The courts observations are part of a judgment reducing the death sentence of Dilip Tiwari,who was convicted for murdering his sisters husband and two family members for her marrying into the so-called lower caste. The court set aside Tiwaris death penalty and reduced his punishment to 25 years of imprisonment without any option for release. It is a common experience that when the younger sister commits something unusual and in this case it was an intercaste,intercommunity marriage out of the secret love affair,then in the society it is the elder brother who justifiably or otherwise is held responsible for not stopping such affair. It is held as the family defeat, the court said. At times,he (the brother) has to suffer taunts and snide remarks even from persons who really have no business to poke their nose into the affairs of the family. Dilip,therefore,must have been a prey of the so-called insult which his younger sister had imposed upon his family, the court reasoned. The murders were the outcome of a social issue like a marriage with a person of so-called lower caste. However,a time has come when we have to consider these social issues as relevant while considering the death sentence in the circumstances as these, the court observed in the judgment. The case relates to the killing of one Prabhu,a member of Ezhavar caste of Kerala,who was hacked to death along with his father Krishnan Nochil,brother Bijit,and a neighbour Abhyaraj,by the convicts who are Brahmins. Prabhus mother Indira and sister Deepa were injured in the attack carried out at Andheri in Mumbai on May 17,2004. Accused Dilip,along with two others Sunil Yadav and Manoj,carried out the killing as they felt insulted because Dilips younger sister Sushma had married Prabhu despite the familys opposition. The Sessions Court had sentenced the accused to death and the Bombay High Court confirmed it,after which the accused had appealed in the apex court.
