In Brief
A seven-year-old girl in the custody of the appellant was subjected to repeated sexual assault and fatal injuries. The appellant was convicted of murder (Section 302), rape (Section 376(2)(f)), and unnatural sexual assault (Section 377), and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court upheld the convictions for sexual assault based on conclusive DNA matches and post-mortem evidence, maintaining life imprisonment for those offences. However, it found the theory that death resulted from asphyxia caused by beating during eating was unsupported by evidence of how the fresh injuries could cause that specific mode of death. The Court downgraded the murder charge to hurt (Section 325 IPC), imposed seven years rigorous imprisonment, and set aside the death penalty.
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