SC commutes rapist’s death sentence

NEW DELHI: Even as there is a nationwide outrage and demand for death to rapists, the Supreme Court had commuted the capital punishment to life imprisonment for a young man — who raped a pregnant woman and killed her grand mother-in-law — on the ground that the accused was drunk and not in a normal state of mind.

Strongly reacting to the court’s judgement the victim’s family on Sunday said the perpetrator of the crime had “no right to live”. The apex court was of the view that the mental condition of an accused be examined before putting the offence in the rarest of the rare category.

A bench of justices Swatanter Kumar (now retired) and Madan B. Lokur had said the manner in which the crime was committed, the mental condition of accused must be examined before putting the offence in the rarest of rare category. “It is not only the crime and its various facets which are the foundation for formation of special reasons as contemplated under Section 354(3) of the CrPC (pertaining to death sentence) for imposing death penalty but it is also the criminal, his background,” the bench had said.