The bench said that by killing the witness the accused had 'polluted the stream of justice'.

The court while converting the death penalty to life imprisonment ruled: 'To attract the penalty of death, it has to be established that the case falls in the category of the rarest of the rare.

'Witnesses being threatened, intimidated or bought over has been plaguing the criminal justice delivery system in India to such an extent that in the eyes of the public the system itself has come under trial.

'The existence of the state is dependent upon a good, effective and efficient criminal justice delivery system. If the same fails, the citizens would settle their disputes in private and the rule of law would cease to exist,' the court said.