INDIA: SC COMMUTES DEATH PENALTY TO 30-YRS JAIL

May 14, 2014: The Supreme Court has commuted the death penalty of a man, convicted for raping and killing a 9-year-old girl in 2009, to a jail term for 30 years without any benefit of remission.
"Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the death sentence awarded by the courts below require to be converted into life imprisonment but taking note of the diabolic manner in which the offence had been committed against a child, it is desirable that the convict should serve minimum sentence of 30 years in jail, without remission," a bench of justices B S Chauhan, J Chelameswar and M Y Eqbal said.
The verdict came in the appeal filed by convict Selvam against the Madras High Court order upholding award of the death sentence by the trial court in the case. Terming the case as the "rarest of rare", the trial court had on March 12, 2010 had awarded capital punishment to him.
The girl had left for her school in the morning of February 12, 2009 and did not return. (Sources: PTI, 14/05/2014)