Bombay High Court allows death row convict to attend daughter's wedding

File Photo/PTI

The Bombay High Court on Monday permitted a man sentenced to death for killing and eviscerating his mother in an inebriated state with an intention to eat her to attend his daughter's wedding for three days.

A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and P D Naik directed the authorities at Kolhapur jail, where the man is lodged, to take him to his house from 9 am to 6 pm on three days - February 23 to February 25.

The convict, Sunil Kuchkoravi, pronounced guilty by a Kolhapur sessions court in the 2021 murder case with his death sentence awaiting confirmation, had sought temporary bail for one week from the HC to attend the wedding.

The court said while in capital punishment cases, the convicts are not entitled to temporary bail or other reliefs like parole or furlough, it was inclined to allow the convict in the present matter to be taken to his house for three days as his daughter was getting married.

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When the court queried as to why death sentence was imposed in the murder case and if it was a brutal killing, Kuchkoravi's lawyer Yug Chaudhari said the convict had in an inebriated state killed his mother and removed her organs and kept them on a table.

When the court sought to know the motive behind the crime, Chaudhari said it was not clear.

¿We don't know the motive. Even his family is shocked. He was a wonderful man they all say. Unblemished record. He used to have frequent headaches so he used to consume liquor,¿ Chaudhari told the bench.

The prosecution case was that Kuchkoravi killed his mother and then eviscerated her with an intention to eat her organs.

Chaudhari on Monday pointed out that the convict comes from poor financial background and hence can not afford to pay escort charges incurred on police personnel taking him to the wedding venue.

The HC then exempted the convict from paying escort charges, and directed the competent authority of the Maharashtra government to make the necessary payments to policemen who will escort him.

¿We are allowing him to be taken out of prison for three days only because it is his daughter's wedding¿ the court observed.

A sessions judge in Kolhapur in south Maharashtra had convicted and sentenced Kuchkoravi to death for offence of murder in July 2021.

The sessions judge had then remarked the case falls in the category of "rarest of rare" as it shook the conscience of society.

The state government had filed a sentence confirmation plea before the HC in 2021 itself. The confirmation plea was yet to be heard.

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