Leave granted.
The appellants were brought to trial for an offence
punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code and
convicted under Section 304 Part (II) IPC on 29th January
1982. This judgment had been confirmed in appeal by the
High Court with the modification that the conviction has
been converted into one punishable under Section 304 Part II
IPC and the sentence reduced from eight to five years.
When this matter came up before this Court on 1st May,
2009 notice was issued limited to the extent of the nature
of offence only.
We have heard the learned counsel on this limited
aspect. We see no reason to interfere with the finding of
conviction. We find, however, that the incident had taken
place on 17th October, 1980 when the appellants herein were
young men. They are now stated to be more than 65 years of
age. We also understand that they have undergone about 9
months of the sentence. Keeping in view the facts and
circumstances of the case, we dismiss the appeal but reduce
the sentence under Section 304 Part II IPC to three years
rigorous imprisonment, the other parts ofs the sentence
being retained as it is.
The appeal is dismissed with the above observations.