Nitish Katara case: SC to hear Vikas Yadav's plea today for reducing jail term

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Thursday hear the plea of Vikas Yadav, who is serving a 25-year jail term without any remission for brutally murdering Nitish Katara in 2002. Yadav has appealed for his prison term to be reduced.

Yadav had made the plea for leniency on Wednesday, and Senior Supreme Court advocate U.R. Lalit appearing for the convict who is the son of former parliamentarian, D.P. Yadav, told a division bench of the apex court headed by Justice Dipak Misra and Justice C. Nagappan, that his client had already served over 14 years of his jail sentence.

He also said that his client has been serving his jail sentence without parole, despite both the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court granting him custodial parole several times.

The division bench, which was hearing the case, then posted the matter for further hearing on Thursday to allow the state to argue its case. Senior counsel Dayan Krishnan will be appearing for the Delhi government before the apex court.

The Delhi High Court had on February 6 rejected the plea for giving a death sentence or enhancing life imprisonment to Vikas and his cousin Vishal to 25 years in jail without any remission.

The high court had then held that the murder of Katara, who was in love with Vikas's sister Bharati, was an "honour killing", which was done in a very "carefully planned and premeditated" manner with "extreme vengeance".

The high court had decided to enhance the sentence awarded by the trial court, saying "amplitude of the gravity of the offence", "cries for the need" that they (the convicts) be "adequately punished".