Ghaziabad: Dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were today awarded life imprisonment by a CBI court for killing their teenaged daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj in a sensational double murder that gripped the nation for five-and-a-half years. 49-year-old Rajesh and Nupur(48) were spared the death penalty by Additional Session Judge Shyam Lal who rejected the CBI plea for maximum punishment. "Keeping in view the entire facts and circumstances, I am of the view that both the accused are not menace to the orderly society. This is not a fit case for inflicting death penalty under section 302(murder) read with section 34 IPC (common intention to commit the crime) and, therefore, it appears just and proper to sentence the accused to rigorous imprisonment for life," the judge said.
Arguing before the court on quantum of punishment in the murder inMay 2008, CBI counsel R K Saini contended that the killings were cold-blooded murders which deserved maximum punishment. Defence counsel Tanvir Mir countered CBI's argument and said the evidence against the Talwars were weak and sought leniency for the couple. He asserted that the crime did not fall under the rarest of rare category since the judge had concluded that the crime was result of a sudden and grave provocation. The arguments lasted just five minutes before the judge adjourned proceedings and pronounced the quantum of sentence at 4.30 PM. The Talwar couple remained composed. The Talwars were also sentenced for five years for destruction of evidence and Rajesh for another one year for filing wrong FIR with police. All the sentences pronounced by the judge, who relied heavily on the circumstantial evidence provided by the CBI, will run concurrently.
The dentist couple were yesterday convicted in the murder of their 14-year-old daughter Aarushi and 45-year-old Hemraj in a case that was awash with allegations of sleaze and sex, police-goof-ups, CBI flip-flops and media bias. The judge also made a reference to freaks in the history of mankind who kill their own progeny. The couple was convicted under IPC sections 302(murder), 201(destruction of evidence) and 34( common intention to commit the crime). Rajesh was also convicted separately for "furnishing false information to the police regarding the murder of his daughter by Hemraj (Section 203)." In its probe, UP police had said that Aarushi and Hemraj were killed by Rajesh at his Noida home on May 15-16 night, 2008, in a fit of rage after finding them in an objectionable position. The throat of the two victims were found slit.
