Meanwhile, SC modifies death penalty to life term

Barely four days after the hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl, the Supreme Court dealt with another similar case wherein a girl, aged four-and-a-half years, was raped at Gandhinagar, Pune, on November 24, 1999, and then killed by one Rahul. According to the prosecution, Rahul enticed the girl playing outside her house by offering her chocolates. After raping her, he slit her throat. Her body was found with her legs and hands tied the following day in a gunny bag in a pit near a stream.

Additional Sessions Judge, Pune, sentenced the accused to death on August 29, 2002. The Bombay High Court confirmed the judgment. The Apex court, on March 26, stayed the execution of the death sentence. On Tuesday, a Bench of Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice A.R. Lakshmanan commuted the death sentence to that of life imprisonment.

The defence cited the following grounds: • The case on hand was not rarest of the rare where death penalty is warranted. • The accused was under the influence of liquor at the time of the offence. • The accused was only 24 years at the time. • There was no record of previous crime committed by the accused.