{"id":257087,"date":"2021-11-14T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T05:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=257087"},"modified":"2021-11-19T18:29:05","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T12:59:05","slug":"5-year-old-raped-killed-thrown-into-a-stream-sc-commutes-death-sentence-to-life-imprisonment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2021\/11\/14\/5-year-old-raped-killed-thrown-into-a-stream-sc-commutes-death-sentence-to-life-imprisonment\/","title":{"rendered":"5-year-old raped, killed, thrown into a stream: SC commutes death sentence to life imprisonment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court<\/strong>: In a case where a death row convict subjected a 5-year-old girl to rape, killed her by strangulation, and then disposed of her body, tied in a gunny bag, into a stream, the 3-judge bench of L. Nageswara Rao, Sanjiv Khanna*<\/strong> and BR Gavai, JJ has, finding hope for reformation and rehabilitation of the appellant, commuted his death sentence to that of life imprisonment.<\/p>\n

The Court, however, stipulated that the appellant shall not be entitled to premature release\/remission before undergoing actual imprisonment of 30 years for the offence under Section 302 of the Code and further the sentences awarded shall run concurrently and not consecutively.<\/p>\n

The trial court had recorded that the death sentence was awarded on the ground that \u201cthe crime was committed in an extremely diabolical manner and that it was cruel, barbaric and revolting.\u201d <\/strong>The High Court has noted that there are no mitigating circumstances at all.<\/p>\n

Appellant\u2019s counsel argued that the trial court merely noticed that the appellant was of young age (23 \/ 25 years) belonging to a very poor family, but has not considered these as mitigating factors. The High Court has noted that there are no mitigating circumstances at all.<\/p>\n

The State, on the other hand, brought to the Court\u2019s notice that the data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau shows that an average of 77 acts of rape were committed daily in India in the year 2020. \u00a0The State, hence, defended the death sentence on the grounds that the actions of the appellant constitute a grave and uncommon crime endangering the moral fabric of the society<\/em><\/strong>. It was argued that the matter falls in the category of \u2018rarest of the rare\u2019 cases as the appellant, under the pretext of giving biscuits, committed rape and murder of a five-year old girl, and threw her dead body into the stream. The deceased could not have provided resistance, much less provocation for the crime.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court, disagreeing with the observations of the Trial Court and the High Court, noted down the following mitigating factors that weighed with against imposition of death penalty which is to be inflicted only in rarest of the rare cases:<\/p>\n