A murder convict serving a life term was produced on Monday before a high court division bench which wanted to grill him before deciding whether he deserved to be hanged.

But the interrogation convinced the bench of Justice G.C. Gupta and Justice K.K. Prasad that the trial court was right in sentencing Balaram Mondal, who had murdered his wife in 1997, to life imprisonment.

While hearing Mondal’s appeal against the trial court order, the judges on September 12 had issued an unusual ruling, asking the jailer of Presidency jail to produce the convict on Friday. The bench had said that it would like to grill Mondal to find out more about the case that Alipore court might have missed during the trial and decide whether it is among the “rarest of rare”, fit for capital punishment.

The judges asked Mondal, who worked as a physiotherapist before being arrested, to recall what had happened on September 24, 1997, the day his wife’s body was recovered from his Bhowanipore residence.

“I returned to my rented house in Santoshpur around 11.30am and found my wife Subhra lying on the floor, unconscious,” said Mondal. He then took his wife to his ancestral house in Bhowanipore in a taxi and called a doctor, who declared Subhra dead.

“As I was overwhelmed with grief, my neighbours informed police. I am innocent. Please set me free,” Mondal pleaded with the bench. The judges discussed the case among themselves before upholding the trial court verdict.

“The Supreme Court had ruled that capital punishment could be awarded in the rarest of rare case. There was no eyewitness to the murder,” said Jayanta N. Chatterjee, who defended Mondal.