NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday awarded life term to former RJD MP Prabhunath Singh days after holding him guilty of the offence of murder for shooting down two persons for casting votes against him in 1995.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Abhay S Oka and Vikram Nath also awarded compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the family of two deceased persons and Rs five lakh to the injured.
"The only option is life sentence or death sentence," the bench said, after hearing senior advocates A M Singhvi and R Basanth appearing for Singh.
The counsel said they have filed the review petition against the judgement of conviction.
The bench, however, said the plea would be considered in chambers as per rules in due course.
After pronouncing the sentence, the bench said, "We have never seen like this before."
The detail copy of the order on sentence would be uploaded on the website, the bench said.
In its August 18 judgement, the bench had said this case was exceptionally painful episode of our criminal justice system as police, prosecution and judiciary failed to deal with the case with due sensitivity, involving a powerful leader of the then ruling party.
"We have noticed that the three main stake holders in a criminal trial, namely the Investigating Officer that is the part of the police of the State of Bihar, the Public Prosecutor, and the Judiciary, have all utterly failed to keep up their respective duties and responsibilities cast upon them," the bench had said.
The bench had then reversed the High Court and the trial court's judgements as they failed to notice the sensitivity and intricacies of the case involving the then ruling party leader who mustered full support of the administration and prosecution and won over almost all the witnesses.
The court had then convicted Singh of the offences under Section 302 and 307 of the IPC and directed his production before the court on September 1 for pronouncement of sentence.
Singh has already been undergoing life term in another murder case.
Victim's family member Harendra Rai challenged the Patna High Court's judgement of December 2, 2021 which had upheld the trial court's decision of October 24, 2008, acquitting Singh and six others of all the charges related to killing of Rajendra Rai, 18, and Daroga Rai, 47, near a polling booth in Chhapra.
