In Brief
A 25-year-old man was convicted of kidnapping, raping (both natural and unnatural intercourse), and murdering a 2-year-old girl. The Trial Court and High Court imposed the death penalty, finding the crime fell within the 'rarest of rare' category. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction but divided on sentence. One judge would have confirmed death; the other commuted it to life imprisonment. The majority (via separate judgment) commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment without remission, holding that conviction rested substantially on circumstantial evidence, the accused was young with no prior criminal history, came from poverty, was intoxicated at the time, and there was no evidence he was irreformable—factors which, collectively, rendered life imprisonment appropriate despite the heinous nature of the crime.
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