In Brief
The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence imposed on main accused Ishwari Lal Yadav and Kiran Bai for murdering a two-year-old child, Chirag, as a ritual human sacrifice. The Court found that corroborated extra-judicial confessions, combined with consistent eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence (the child's severed body found in the accused's house with puja articles), proved guilt beyond reasonable doubt. However, the Court set aside convictions of four other appellants, finding insufficient evidence of their participation or common intention. The murder of a helpless child in brutally grotesque manner, coupled with the accused's prior similar conviction and lack of reformation prospects, was held to constitute a 'rarest of rare case' warranting capital punishment."
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