New Delhi, July 15 -- The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the life imprisonment of a woman lawyer and her three associates for the 2003 murder of her fiance, but called on the Karnataka governor to consider their pleas for pardon, observing that society itself cannot escape responsibility for the deviant behavior it often helps shape.

A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Aravind Kumar, while affirming the conviction and sentence awarded by the Karnataka High Court to advocate Shubha Shankarnarayan (42) and her three co-accused, delved deep into the sociological underpinnings of criminality and appealed for compassion, transformation and community responsibility.

"Society, through its own systemic failures, inequalities, or neglect often p...