Death Penalty imposed on a man by the trial court for the rape and murder of his own minor niece has been commuted by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh.
The trial court had convicted Vinay for rape and murder of a minor girl, who was his niece and was of thirteen year old at the time of incident. It was submitted by the prosecution in the trial court that girl was killed by the accused and his juvenile friends by hitting her with stone on head and then they strangled her and hanged her with the red coloured saree on the roof after committing rape with her.
The Division bench of Justice SK Seth and Justice Anjuli Palo while hearing the appeal against the same observed that the evidence produced by the prosecution beyond any reasonable ground leads to the conclusion that the heinous crime has been committed by the appellant only and that the trial court was right in its decision of convicting the appellant on the charge of rape and murder of a minor girl.
The Bench however noted that the sentence of life imprisonment should be imposed instead of death penalty. The bench held that the prosecution has failed to show that there is no probability of accused being reformed and rehabilitated and the accused will continue to commit such crimes which poses a threat to the society at large.
The bench held that considering the mitigating circumstances in favours of the conviction. The appellant belongs to schedule tribe without criminal antecedents thus the death penalty is commuted to the life imprisonment.
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