A woman, her husband and father-in-law have escaped a jail term for beating up the woman’s mother after a city court held that a 12-year long trial was too much of an agony. The victim, in this case a senior citizen, chose not to press for sending the convicts behind bars, after such a long period of time.

Adopting a lenient view in the wake of the overstretched trial and their conduct, Metropolitan Magistrate Neeraj Gaur, in his recent order, decided to let off the three convicts on furnishing a bond of probation of good conduct as a pre-condition to avoid going to jail.

The court, while pronouncing the quantum of sentence against Neeta, her husband Khajan Singh and father-in-law Kartar Singh, also took into account the report forwarded by the probation officer, who also favoured lesser punishment for them.

The complaint in the matter was filed by Neeta’s mother, who alleged that Neeta, her husband, and father-in-law, beat her up on May 12, 1997, at her residence in Adarsh Nagar area.

After a trial spanning over a decade, the court had convicted them under the charges of causing hurt and wrongfully confining a person. The trio, however, requested the court to release them on probation as they had clean antecedents and regularly appeared in court during the protracted trial. It was also submitted that Kartar was a government servant and sending him to jail would virtually throw him out of his job.

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