AGRA: A Muzaffarnagar court sentenced a 38-year-old man to death for burning his 23-year-old wife alive after pouring kerosene on her in 2018.The court observed that the manner of the killing was “extremely brutal and barbaric” and placed the case in the “rarest of rare” category.Additional district and sessions judge, Fast Track Court-III, Ravi Kumar Diwakar on Monday awarded the death penalty to Nadeem, a resident of Shahpur, and imposed a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh.It may be mentioned that a total of 97 pending files involving murder and other heinous offences have been recalled from his court of judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar, after it emerged in August that he had awarded death sentences to 22 convicts in 10 cases over four months.The files were returned on the orders of the district and sessions judge Birendra Kumar Singh.The high court can confirm, commute or alter death sentence after examining the evidence.However, none of the 22 death sentences handed down by Judge Diwakar have yet been confirmed by Allahabad high court.Additional district govt counsel (ADGC) Kuldeep Kumar said the incident dates to the evening of July 23, 2018, when Nadeem came home drunk and assaulted his wife, Shahzadi.After having dinner, he assaulted her again and threatened to divorce her, before allegedly pouring kerosene on her and setting her on fire.She was rushed to a local hospital in Muzaffarnagar and later referred to New Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries five days later. She suffered 98% burns, and the cause of death was determined as septic shock.An FIR was filed at Shahpur police station on July 23 based on a complaint by the victim’s father, Dilshad, a resident of Baghpat, under sections 302 (murder), 498A (cruelty to women), and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the IPC, alongside sections of the Dowry Prohibition Act, naming Nadeem, his mother Shamshida, and sister Soni.During the trial, the mother-in-law passed away, while Soni was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.On July 24, 2018, then executive magistrate Ashok Kumar recorded Shahjadi’s dying declaration at Safdarjung Hospital, wherein she detailed how an intoxicated Nadeem assaulted her, threatened divorce and set her ablaze.The court noted that Shahjadi’s dying declaration did not mention any demand for additional dowry or related cruelty, meaning offences under IPC Section 304B and Sections 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act were not established.Holding that Nadeem acted with the clear intention to kill, the court convicted him under IPC Section 302.In striking remarks within the judgment, Justice Ravi Kumar Diwakar emphasised that his parents had taught him to fear God and no one else, stating that if he were to perform judicial duties out of fear of strongmen, mafias or criminals, public faith in the judiciary would lose its meaning.Declaring that he would prefer death to being called a coward judge, he added that he would continue serving as long as he could follow his principles, and would otherwise resign, reiterating that as long as he occupied the judge’s chair, the authority to decide cases would rest solely with him.
