PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has upheld the conviction of Vijay Karbotkar, a history sheeter who was earlier convicted of the murder of one Lavu Parsekar outside the Sunshine Bar in Porvorim in 2013.
The High Court, however, downgraded the conviction from section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and instead convicted him under section 304 Part I (culpable homicide with the intention of causing death) and reduced his sentence from life imprisonment to ten years rigorous imprisonment.
“The above case would fall under exception 4 (when a culpable homicide is not murder) as it is clear from the material placed on record that the offence or the overt act was committed without premeditation and in a sudden fight in the heat of passion due to a sudden quarrel,” the Bombay High Court bench of Justices M S Sonak and Bharat Deshpande ruled.
“Admittedly, there is no material on record to show that there was any previous enmity between the present accused and the deceased. The accused alongwith his friends was already present and was enjoying drinks. The deceased alongwith his friends came to the site. Due to a trivial matter, suddenly the fight between the present accused and the deceased started. There were exchanges of words, as well as fists blows and in the heat of passion without any provocation, a knife was used thereby causing bleeding injuries. It is no doubt true that the accused left the said place after the incident. We, therefore, observe that the present case falls within exception 4 of Section 300,” the High Court said.
In May last year, the Additional District and Sessions Court in Mapusa had convicted Karbotkar, a resident of Britona in the Lavu Parsekar murder case.
The two accused – Vijay Karbotkar and Shailesh Shailu Dinanath Naik of Batkarvaddo, Porvorim – got into an altercation with the deceased Lavu Parsekar and attacked him. Karbotkar stabbed Parsekar in the stomach with a sharp weapon resulting in his death.
The then Porvorim Police Inspectors, Nilesh Rane and Manoj Mardolkar registered the case under section 302 of the IPC and arrested both the accused and filed a chargesheet in the court.
In 2018, the Additional District and Sessions court had convicted Shailesh Naik and sentenced him to six months of simple imprisonment.
However, Karbotkar was declared a fugitive and an arrest warrant was issued against him.
