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The Delhi High Court on Monday reduced the life sentence of five Jaish E Mohammad (JeM) to ten years.
They had challenged the order of the trial court awarding a life sentence to them in November 2022. A division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Manoj Jain disposed of the five appeals by modifying the period of the sentence. The life imprisonment has been reduced to a ten-year jail term. While disposing of petitions of Bilal Ahmed Mir, Sajjad Ahmed Khan, Mujaffar Ahmed Bhatt, Mehraj Uddin Chopan, and Ashfaq Ahmad Bhatt for the offence under section 121 A of IPC. The division bench has modified the sentence of Ashfaq Ahmad Bhatt from life imprisonment to rigorous ten years of jail punishment under section 23 of UAPA. While disposing of the appeals, the High Court cited the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky's quote from the book "Crime and Punishment". The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. In chapter 19, Dostoevsky writes that "if he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake; that will be punishment as well as the prison", the bench said in the judgement. They were convicted in a National Investigation Agency (NIA) case. The High Court noted that In the case, we are fully cognizant of the fact that the appellants had pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity, without any expectation. "There is nothing on record which may suggest that they are beyond redemption. India has shown enough progression in all spheres and our justice delivery system is no exception," the bench said. "It also strongly believes that, more often than not, the eventual consequence of any penal sanction should be to reform any individual, instead of shutting him out by putting him inside for life," the bench added. (ANI)
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