New Del Sep 6 (IANS): Taking into account the antecedents of a man sentenced to death for killing his foster parents and pregnant wife for opposing his extra-marital affair, the Delhi High Court has commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.

A division bench of Justice Reva Khetrapal and Justice Sunita Gupta ordered life sentence to Nitin Verma, 29, after taking into consideration his age and antecedents.

"No doubt triple murder has been committed by the convict in a gruesome and diabolic manner but it cannot be lost sight of the fact that this was not a murder to satisfy any greed. The accused has no bad antecedents, neither he is a hardcore criminal, nor an anti-social element nor even an anti-national element," the bench said in a recent order.

"He is a young boy. The possibility of his rehabilitation and reformation is not foreclosed. As such, we are of the opinion that this is not a case where death penalty is warranted."

"The appellant/accused, therefore, instead of being awarded death penalty is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life...," the court said while disposing of the state's plea for confirmation of death penalty.

Verma was adopted by his parents when he was barely a few days old and at the time of incident, was working with a courier company.

According to the prosecution, in April 2008, Verma stabbed his handicapped father, mother and his six-month pregnant wife to death.

The trial court, while awarding death penalty held that Verma was a menace to the society.

The court judge said that he wiped out his whole family consisting of his parents and wife in order to ensure that he continued his liaison with a girl in the neighbourhood and to marry her.

Verma first killed his foster father on the ground floor of the house, then rushed to the first floor and killed his foster mother and thereafter went into his room where he knifed his pregnant wife to death.