Calcutta, May 8: In a rare outburst during a hearing, Calcutta High Court today asked a Hooghly judge why she would not enhance the sentences of three convicts who tried to kill a schoolgirl eight years ago for refusing to marry one of them who was 44 years old.

The high court was hearing the trio’s bail application.

“Generally, the high court criticises a trial court’s judgment in its verdict on the appeal. But in the present case, after hearing the bail petition, the high court reacted. It is a rare event,” said advocate Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee, who appeared for the girl.

The assistant sessions judge of Hooghly, Shukla Sengupta, had in 2003 sentenced the three to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and ordered them to pay Rs 75,000 each to the girl who had to spend more than four months in hospital and is confined to a wheelchair.

“The crime was serious in nature. Considering the gravity of the crime, why would the trial court not enhance the sentence and fine amount?” a division bench of Justices A.K. Talukdar and S.P. Mitra said.

In 1997, Kazi Abdul Hassan, who was already married, had sought the hand of Nargis Yasin, a 15-year-old Class IX student of Pandua Girls’ High School in Hooghly. But the girl turned down his proposal.

A couple of months later ? on January 25, 1998 ? Nargis was returning from a tuition class around 6.30 pm, when Hassan and two others, Sheikh Rahim and Sheikh Murshed Ali, accosted her and told her to accompany them.

When the girl refused, Hassan shot her in the abdomen from a revolver while his associates hacked her with choppers. A profusely bleeding Nargis collapsed on the ground and the three fled.

Nargis was admitted to a hospital in Pandua and then shifted to a nursing home at Beckbagan in Calcutta. When her condition deteriorated, she was taken to Vellore.

Nargis was released from the Vellore hospital after four and a half months. Her left side has been paralysed.

Back in Pandua and strapped to a wheelchair, the girl lodged a complaint at the local police station and the three were arrested.

The trial started in the Hooghly court in the middle of 1998. After hearing eyewitnesses Bablu Das and Badal Jana, Sengupta convicted all the accused and delivered the sentence in December 2003. The three then moved the high court.

As Nargis battled for justice, she also passed her Madhyamik and Higher Secondary examinations. The girl, for whom the legal system seems to have brought a ray of hope, is now studying law.