New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday reserved verdict on a plea seeking review of death penalty it awarded to a woman and her lover for killing her parents, two brothers and their wives and strangulating her 10-month-old nephew in Uttar Pradesh.
A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices S A Nazeer and Sanjiv Khanna was told by the lawyers of convicts that the death penalty be commuted keeping in mind the possibility of their reformation.
The apex court asked senior advocates Anand Grover and Meenakshi Arora whether it can consider the “good behaviour” of convicts post conviction.
“Every criminal is said to have an innocent heart. However, we have to look into the crime committed as well,” the bench observed.
The apex court had upheld their death sentence in 2015. In 2010, the Allahabad High Court had upheld the death sentence awarded to the duo by a sessions court.
Saleem and Shabnam were having an affair and wanted to get married but their relationship met with stiff opposition from the woman’s family.
On April 15, 2008, Shabnam’s entire family was wiped out and the woman initially pretended that her house in Amroha district of UP was attacked by unidentified assailants.
It came to light during the investigation that she had abetted Saleem in the crime as she made her family members drink milk laced with sedatives before the attack and thereafter herself throttled her little nephew.