Cuttack: Orissa High Court has given relief to a man who was sentenced more than 13 years ago to imprisonment for life for murdering a person as he had "no intention to commit the murder".

Nullifying his conviction and sentence, the high court found it fit for him to serve 10 years and ordered his release as he has been in custody for more than 13 years.

The high court gave this relief while modifying the conviction and sentence for murder and making out a case of "culpable homicide" against him. Culpable homicide is an act which has resulted in a person's death but is held not to amount to murder.

The court felt the offence committed by Shyama Ganda amounted to culpable homicide and not murder as the injury caused on the vital part of the deceased was sufficient in ordinary course of nature to cause death but the medical officer had said that the deceased would have survived had the bleeding been checked within five to 10 minutes.

On December 17, 2002, 20 villagers, including the deceased, of B.Singhpur police limits in Koraput bought a bullock to slaughter and share the meat. Ganda was engaged to slaughter the bullock and remove the skin. After slaughtering, when the villagers were dividing the meat between them, the deceased found that the accused had concealed about 500g of meat under the skin. The deceased took it out and mixed with the lot for division.

Subsequently, when the deceased was washing his hand, the accused stabbed him from behind over the testicles. As a result, the deceased fell to the ground and started bleeding.

The villagers moved him to his house. He died on the way to hospital.

The Court of Adhoc Additional Sessions Judge, Jeypore, convicted Ganda for murder and sentenced him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life in April 2004. Ganda challenged the trial court order in the high court that same year.

The appeal petition had since languished till the high court gave its verdict on June 29.

The division bench of Justice S.K. Mishra and Justice K.R. Mohapatra held that the death of the deceased was a case of culpable homicide and modified the judgment of conviction for murder and sentenced Ganda to undergo imprisonment for 10 years.

But the bench ordered his release as he had been in custody for more than 13 years.