"Abhorrent" Crime Not Sole Criterion For Death Sentence: Supreme Court
NDTV
Supreme Court: In its 98-page judgement, the bench noted that the appellant was accused of enticing a seven-year-old girl to accompany him on the pretext of picking fruits and thereafter raped her.
The Supreme Court Wednesday commuted the death sentence, awarded to a man for raping and murdering a seven-year-old girl, to life imprisonment saying it cannot be said that there is no probability of the convict being reformed and rehabilitated.
The top court, while upholding his conviction for the offences including that of murder and rape under the Indian Penal Code and the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, said the convict shall not be entitled to premature release or remission before undergoing actual imprisonment for 30 years.
A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar delivered its verdict on the appeal against the October 2017 judgement of the Allahabad High Court which had confirmed the death sentence awarded to the convict by the trial court.
The trial court had in December 2016 convicted the man for several offences and sentenced him to death for the offence under section 302 (murder) of the IPC.
