Gurugram, Feb 7 (IANS): A court here on Friday awarded the death sentence to a former Personal Security Officer (PSO) of an Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) after finding him guilty of murdering the judge's son and wife in October 2018.

Mahipal Singh, the former PSO, was terminated from service after shooting dead then ASJ Krishna Kant's wife Ritu Kant and son Dhruva Kant on October 13, 2018 in a "fit of rage".

On Thursday, the Gurugram District Court held him guilty in connection with the double murder. The court had said that it would pronounce the quantum of punishment on Friday.

ASJ Sudhir Parmar, handing out the death penalty, said Mahipal Singh's act comes under the "rarest of rare" case.

"As a government servant, he had the responsibility to protect them. Instead, he breached their trust and gunned them down," Parmar said.

In October 2018, Singh had shot dead Ritu and Dhruva outside a shopping complex in Sector 49 here in broad daylight.

Explaining the sequence of events, prosecution lawyer Vishal Gupta said on October 13, 2018, the ASJ's spouse and his son after returning from the shopping complex did not find Singh near their car.

After a while when he came back, Dhruva sought the car's key to place the purchased items inside the vehicle.

Meanwhile, some heated exchanges took place in the short period of "taking the car's key and boarding the car" which provoked Mahipal Singh to shoot both.

It was later claimed that relations between ASJ Krishna Kant, his family members and Mahipal were "very healthy".

The heated exchange of words triggered Mahipal to first open fire at Dhruva, and then at the ASJ's wife Ritu Kant when she tried to save her son. Mahipal, after shooting them, could be seen in the viral videos kicking and punching them.

During arguments in court, Gupta also mentioned the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who was gunned down by her two security guards Beant Singh and Satwant Singh. The co-conspirator Kehar Singh was also awarded the death sentence by the court.

"We had appealed to court for maximum penalty by pointing out some of the past cases including assassination of late PM Indira Gandhi and court acknowledged it," Gupta said.

Defence lawyer PS Sharma, however, requested the court not to award the death sentence to Mahipal.

In his argument, Sharma said Mahipal is the only bread earner of the family and also bears the responsibility of old parents, wife and two minor daughters. The court, however, turned down Sharma's plea.