SC upholds death sentence of man who raped and murdered minor girl with mental illness

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of raping and murdering a girl who had mental and physical illness, Live Law reported.

The 37-year old man, who had raped the girl in in 2013, had filed an appeal against a May 2015 order of the Rajasthan High Court awarding him capital punishment.

However, a three-judge bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar held that the manner in which the seven-year-old girl, who was in a “vulnerable state”, was assaulted showed “extreme depravity”, Live Law reported.

In his appeal, the convicted man had argued that the case against him was based on circumstantial evidence and that he had been falsely implicated. His lawyer argued that the man should be given the “benefit of residual doubt” and not be sentenced to death, Bar and Bench reported.

The man also argued that he was young at the time of the crime and now has a wife and daughter to look after.

However, the court noted that the man had criminal cases against him before being convicted in this case, and his conduct had not changed even after being jailed.

Before being convicted in the rape case, there were at least four cases against the man pertaining to destruction of public properties, theft and attempt to murder. In the present case too, he had abducted the girl on a stolen motorcycle, the judges noted, according to Live Law.

While in jail too, the man had been convicted for the murder of an inmate and was handed a seven-day punishment for quarreling with yet another prisoner, the judges said in the order.

“The tremors thrown by the appellant to shock anyone’s conscience with his beastly conduct have not stopped even with this inhumane crime and even after his conviction,” the court observed, according to Bar and Bench. “...“The facts surfacing on record make it clear that the crime in question was not the singular criminal activity of the appellant.”

In defence of its order to uphold the death sentence, the court said that the man was a “danger to the maintenance of order in the society” and that there was no chance of him being reformed.