RAIPUR: The Supreme Court has commuted the death
sentence
of a convict in the
2011 Chhattisgarh triple murder case
to life imprisonment and said that the convict should be kept in jail for at least 25 years.
Hearing a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the convict -Manoj Suryavanshi - the triple bench of the apex court comprising Justices Arun Mishra, Vineet Saran, and MR Shah on Thursday commuted the death sentence of the convict imposed by a trial court and upheld by the Chhattisgarh high court and converted it into life imprisonment.
The triple bench of the apex court directed that there shall not be any remission till the accused completes 25 years of imprisonment.
The triple bench of the apex court stated that the accused was under extreme mental disturbance after his wife eloped and his children were deprived of the company of their mother, therefore, mitigating circumstances are in favour of the accused to convert the death sentence to life imprisonment. On May 5, 2013, a local court in Bilaspur had sentenced Manoj Suryavanshi to death for murdering and hiding the bodies of three children in 2011. Suryavanshi, who was working as a labourer at the house of Shivlal Dhiwar, the complainant and father of the victims. When the wife of the convict - Sumrit Bai - went missing, he suspected that she had eloped with the younger brother of Dhiwar, following which he killed the children.