New Delhi: A murder convict serving life sentence in a 1994 Puri murder case after the Orissa High Court convicted him has sought relief from the Supreme Court.
Convict Kumar Mahapatra, who was sentenced to undergo life imprisonment by the Orissa HC May 2017 moved the apex court which heard his case Friday.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Uday Umesh heard the arguments of the petitioner and sought to know from Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) of Puri whether all accused in the case had surrendered.
Mahapatra and others were convicted by the High Court in connection with the murder of Sukanta Panda in Puri, August 31, 1994. As per the case details, Panda was attacked by a group of men with sharp weapons which led to his collapse. The victim’s mother and a relative named Mahapatra and others for the attack on the basis of what the man had stated before his death.
An accomplice, however, fled the scene and did not corroborate anything about the incident while the victim’s mother filed an FIR on the basis of the victim’s statement. The Orissa HC which heard the case awarded life imprisonment for Mahapatra and others.
The convict’s lawyer Subhranshu Padhi who sought relief for Mahapatra argued that since there was no eyewitness to the murder the ‘‘dying declaration’’ as reported by the deceased’s mother and not recorded by any magistrate or authorized police official.
The petitioner while citing the merits of the case has challenged the Orissa HC order of life imprisonment and sought exemption from life sentence. The court is likely to hear the case after getting the CJM’s report from Puri.
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