IANS/New Delhi
A Delhi court yesterday sentenced Shahzad Ahmad, the lone convict in the 2008 Batla House shootout case to life in jail. A police officer was killed in the gunfight.
Additional sessions judge Rajender Kumar Shastri, who on July 25 convicted the 24-year-old man from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh for killing Delhi Police special cell inspector M C Sharma in the shootout, also imposed a Rs95,000 fine on Ahmad.
Judge Shastri said out of the Rs95,000 fine imposed on Ahmad, Rs40,000 would be given to the family of Sharma.
Head constable Balwant Singh, who was injured in the shootout, would get Rs20,000 out of the penalty amount.
The court said the case did not come under “rarest of rare case” category.
The prosecution on Monday had sought the death penalty for Ahmad stating that the police officer’s killing fell in the category of “rarest of rare case”.
The accused killed Sharma and injured head constables Balwant Singh and Rajbir Singh while they were performing their duty, so he should be given death penalty, the prosecution argued.
On the arguments of the prosecution that the five first information reports had been registered against Ahmad under various acts, the court said he was not found guilty in those cases and “an accused is presumed to be innocent till he is proved guilty”.
On the contentions of the defence that accused Ahmad be granted pardon or remission from sentence, the court said it had “no authority” in this.
“Aforementioned powers have been granted to the executive by the Constitution itself. In my opinion, the courts have no authority to abrogate these constitutional powers, exercised by the executive,” the court said.
The shootout between a Delhi Police special cell team and alleged Indian Mujahideen operatives occurred on September 19, 2008, days after serial blasts rocked the national capital on September 13 claiming 26 lives.