Mumbai:

A sessions court here on Tuesday sentenced artist Chintan Upadhyay to “rigorous imprisonment for life” for conspiring to kill his estranged wife Hema Upadhyay. Rejecting the prosecution’s demand for a death sentence, the court, in the judgment, noted that Chintan was an acclaimed international artist who did not have any criminal antecedents.

While seeking to “finish off all the problems relating to Hema once and for all, a thought might have taken the shape of determination to eliminate” her, said additional sessions judge, Dindoshi court, S Y Bhosale in his judgment.

On October 5, the court had held Upadhyay guilty of abetting and conspiring to kill his wife, who too was an artist.

On Tuesday, the sentence was passed.

Three co-accused, namely, tempo driver Vijay Rajbhar and helpers Pradeep Rajbhar and Shivkumar Rajbhar, found guilty of murdering Hema and her lawyer Haresh Bhambhani, were also sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life.

The court order noted that the flat where Hema and Chintan were residing was jointly owned by them. In case of Hema’s death, the property would have gone to Chintan.

While Chintan had filed a petition for divorce on the ground of cruelty which the family court granted, Hema challenged it before the High Court, and thus, Chintan was required to wait till the HC decided the matter, the sessions court said.

These two circumstances were sufficient to infer the motive to kill Hema, it said.

But the case was not “rarest of rare” (which warrants capital punishment), and hence it was awarding the punishable of life sentence, the court said.

The other three accused had no criminal antecedents and were young, the judge said, adding that Shivkumar had just completed 18 years of age when the crime was committed.

“Their financial condition appears to be very poor, and that appears to be the sole ground that they agreed to commit the present offence,” the judge said.

Chintan Upadhyay had crossed 50 years of age and was well-off; he was also an internationally acclaimed artist, the court noted.

“He has no criminal antecedents. It appears that at particular point of time to finish off all the problems relating to Hema once and for all, a thought might have taken shape of determination to eliminate Hema,” the court said.

This thought was the result of the particular period he was passing through, it added.

“Thus, there appears less possibility that they (the four convicted accused) would commit any offence in future. In other words, the possibility of reformation of these accused is high,” it said.

The court held though “the act of the accused was brutal, the case cannot be termed as a rarest of rare case which warrants death penalty.”

Hema Upadhyay and advocate Bhambhani were killed on December 11, 2015, and the bodies were stuffed into cardboard boxes and thrown into a ditch in suburban Kandivali.

Vidyadhar Rajbhar, who is accused to executing the murders, is yet to be arrested.

Chintan Upadhyay was arrested soon after the murders for allegedly conspiring to eliminate his wife.

He spent nearly six years in jail before being granted bail by the Supreme Court in September 2021.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)