In Brief
On 2 February 2000, during mob violence sparked by the conviction of a political leader, three accused splashed petrol into a college students' bus and set it alight, killing three young women students. A two-Judge Bench had imposed death sentences. The Review Bench commuted these to life imprisonment, holding that the acts, though brutal, were committed in mob frenzy without premeditation or planning. The court emphasised that crimes committed during spontaneous mob violence, without prior planning against identified victims, do not ordinarily fall within the 'rarest of rare cases' justifying capital punishment, and that mitigating circumstances including the prospect of reformation had been overlooked by the sentencing bench.
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