KOCHI: Retired High Court judge Kemal Pasha opined that the verdict in the Sharon murder case would not stand in the Supreme Court. Kemal Pasha rated the verdict in Sharon's murder case a tad ‘excessive’ and highlighted the earlier SC verdicts to vindicate his stance.
Kemal Pasha is not too satisfied with the court not considering the pressure Sharon put on Greeshma to consider suicide rather than opting for another marriage.
KEMAL PASHA:
“The death penalty is imposed in rare cases where there is no room for doubt about the grave crime committed, or on situations when the judges feel the life imprisonment ill fit for the crime committed. On the facts of this case, the death sentence was a bit excessive. The accused is only 24 years old and the crime was committed when she was 21. She is only getting into an age to do things with conscience leaving behind the old puerile self.
In this case, Greeshma had pressure to end the relationship and feared the chances of retaliation from her partner if she went otherwise. She even tried to commit suicide by drinking Lizol while in police custody. At that time the magistrate had recorded the statement. She mixed poison after getting to know that there was no escape from her partner. He would never allow her to break the relationship. In the statement, she even confessed that the suicide attempt was to escape from the police brutality.
In her statement, it is noted that her partner once said if he could not marry her, then nobody would. She was left with no option. This doesn’t take away the grave crime she committed. But definitely, it is not a rarest of rare cases.”