NEW DELHI: In a rare judgment, a city court sentenced an 80-year-old man to life term imprisonment for killing his granddaughter-in-law by pouring kerosene and setting her ablaze.“Instead of taking care of his granddaughter-in-law and making her comfortable to the fullest, he had indulged himself in smothering the life which was yet to blossom,” district and sessions Judge Deepak Jagotra.The victim Farha was married to the grandson of Chander Singh. On March 11, 2011, the woman and the octogenarian got into a fight. According to her dying declaration, the fight took place after about six months of the marriage where Singh asked her to leave the house. An altercation ensued, and Singh procured a can-full of kerosene and a match, she claims. She also claimed that at the time of the attack, the victim’s brother-in-law and his wife were witnesses. The statement reveals at the time of the incident, the woman’s husband was in the toilet, but on hearing her screams, he rushed to extinguish the fire.The husband, interestingly, had turned out to be a hostile witness to the prosecution’s case which the court termed as understandable.The victim had survived for nine days before succumbing to the burn injuries and the court ruled out any tutoring or prompting which could have influenced the victim’s dying declaration, which it firmly relied upon. Singh’s defence lawyer argued that the post-mortem examination revealed septicaemia as the main cause of death and not burns. The court, however, said, “It can easily be gathered if there are no burn injuries in the body, the same cannot trigger septicaemia.”In an Indian society, the court commented, the relationship of a grand daughter-in-law and grand father-in-law was “revered”. “The grandfather-in-laws love their granddaughter-in-laws more than their own daughters. The present convict has done exact opposite to the said norm,” it said.Being critical of Singh’s action, the court said it had left an indelible scar on the victim’s family, but to some extent, he had also put his own family into a lot of trouble. “The convict has committed such a crime at this last stage of his life.... For such an offence, he deserves no leniency and deserves appropriate punishment,” said the court while also slapping a fine of Rs 20,000 on Singh.