A district court here on Saturday sentenced 13 workers of Maruti Udyog to life imprisonment for killing the Human Resources manager of the car manufacturer during labour unrest at its plant in Manesar in 2012. About 90 executives had also been injured in the violence
Twelve of the 13 were office-bearers of the the Maruti-Suzuki Workers’ Union at that time.
Additional Sessions Judge R.P. Goyal had on March 10 held them guilty of murder, attempt to murder, destruction of evidence and criminal conspiracy.
The court had held a total of 31 persons guilty in the case out which 13 were awarded life imprisonment, 14 were let off with the court considering the period they spent in jail during the trial as the term of sentence, while the remaining four were sentenced to five years imprisonment. Sixty-six accused workers are absconding.
The prosecution had sought death sentence for the 13 workers, while counsel for the convicts had argued that that the capital punishment would be an injustice to them since the death of the senior executive in the violence had happened accidentally and was not an planned murder.
Seeking life imprisonment for the 13 convicts, senior lawyer Rebecca John had argued that all the men had maintained a good conduct in jail and had been pursuing educational courses there.
For the remaining 18 convicts held guilty of charges of voluntarily causing hurt and other offences, the prosecution had asked for the highest punishment of seven years. The defence counsel had argued that the 18 convicts had already served four or more years in jail, and this period should be taken into consideration while fixing the quantum of punishment for them.
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