New Delhi, October 10: Resisting awarding the extreme penalty of death to a 28-year-old man who raped and assaulted a child 30 times before killing the minor, the Supreme Court ordered on Friday that the accusedbe imprisoned till death.
Upholding the death sentence given by a trial court in Kerala and the high court, a bench of justices Harjit Singh Bedi and JM Panchal rejected the convict’s plea to convert the death sentence to life imprisonment that normally ends in 14 years.
Thejudges relied on an earlier SC judgment in theSwamy Shraddananda vs. state of Karnataka that resolved the judicial dilemma in givingexemplary sentences to accused who committed the rarest of rare crimes.
“We areof the view that there is a good and strong basis for the court to substitute a death sentence bylife imprisonment or by a term in excess of 14years and further to direct that the convict should not be released from prison for the rest of his life,” the apex court rule
–Agencies–