Fourteen years after the sensational murder of trade union leader Sankar Guha Niyogi in Bhillai, the Supreme Court on Thursday handed down life term to his assailant Paltan Mallah.

A Bench, comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice A R Lakshmanan partly, upheld the high court order acquitting owners of Simplex Industries.

The Central Bureau of Investigation had appealed against the HC order acquitting the six accused, including Navin Shah, Chandrakant Shah and Moolchand Shah of the industrial group.

The Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha had also appealed against the order.

The prosecution alleged that the industrialists had hatched a conspiracy to eliminate the trade union leader, who had started a major agitation against industrialists in Bhillai demanding regularisation of services of workers and payment of minimum wages to them.

The trial court on June 23, 1997, sentenced Mallah, the hired killer, to death. The owners of the simplex industries were also convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The apex court said there was no cogent evidence against the industrialists and upheld their acquittal by the HC.
But it reversed the HC order pertaining to Mallah and upheld the order of conviction given by the trial Court.

However, observing that the case did not fall under the category of the rarest of rare cases, it commuted the death sentence awarded to Mallah by the trial court to life imprisonment.