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SRINAGAR: The J&K high court set aside Wednesday the conviction of an elderly woman in a 1979 murder case from Uri near the LoC in Baramulla district of north Kashmir, citing 46 years of prolonged proceedings and her age-related infirmities.A single-judge bench of Justice Sanjay Parihar ruled that the sentence of Shameema Begam should be treated as already undergone, saying no useful purpose would be served by maintaining a substantive jail term after decades of litigation. The court ordered closure of the case, while saying that “the offence was committed in a heat of passion without premeditation.”The killing dates back to July 10, 1979, when Begam of Bijhama village struck her mother-in-law with an axe during a domestic quarrel. The older woman had intervened in an argument when Begam was repeatedly asked to irrigate maize fields and later died of head wounds four days later.Begam was arrested on July 21, 1979, and released on bail on Oct 25 that year. Police registered an FIR at Bijhama police station under sections 326 and 324 of Ranbir Penal Code, the criminal law then in force in J&K under Dogra-era statutes. After the victim died, the charge was converted to murder under section 302 RPC. The trial dragged on for three decades. On July 16, 2009, a trial court convicted Begam under section 304 RPC, holding that the act was culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and sentenced her to five years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 2,000. She was arrested after conviction but released on bail within days — on July 28, 2009.Begam appealed the verdict. The appeal remained pending for more than 16 years before coming up for final hearing. Her lawyer Nida Nazir said extraordinary delay in both trial and appeal violated Begam’s right to a speedy trial and warranted a sympathetic approach.HC called the case “a testimony to the systemic delay in the disposal of criminal cases”. While delay cannot ordinarily benefit a convict, the court said, it cannot ignore the reality of accused people remaining trapped in the criminal justice system for decades. “The appeal is accordingly disposed of,” the court said, bringing an end to one of Kashmir’s longest-running criminal cases.
