In Brief
A 22-year-old man was convicted of raping and murdering a 9-year-old girl. He dragged her into a sugarcane field, sexually assaulted her, and threw her into a well where she drowned. The trial court and High Court sentenced him to death. The Supreme Court found the crime heinous and brutal but held that the death penalty was disproportionate because the case did not fall within the "rarest of rare" category. The Court set aside the death sentence and substituted it with 30 years imprisonment without remission, emphasizing that life imprisonment is the rule and death sentence an exception, and that punishment must be proportionate to the offence.
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