Supreme Court Sets Aside Death Penalty In Boy's Sexual Assault, Murder Case

The bench said the lack of explanation by the appellant was to say the least "baffling".

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the death sentence imposed on a convict in a sexual assault and murder case of a four-year-old minor boy in 2016, and substituted it with a 25-year jail term without remission.

Holding the crime was diabolical, a bench comprising Justices B R Gavai, Aravind Kumar and K V Viswanathan, took note of the mitigating circumstances and observed it was not a case where the possibility of reformation was completely ruled out.

The case does not fall in the rarest of rare category, the bench said.