Indore: In another verdict which will almost certainly lead to protests, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has reduced life sentence of a rape convict to 20 years.
Justifying its order, the Indore bench of Justices Subodh Abhyankar and SK Singh of the high court noted that even though the crime was demonic, the convict was “kind enough” to spare the child’s life.
“In such circumstances, this court does not find any error in appreciation of evidence by the trial court and considering the demonic act of the appellant, who appears to have no respect for the dignity of a woman and has the propensity to commit sexual offences even with a girl child aged four years, this court does not find it to be a fit case where the sentence can be reduced to the sentence already undergone by him… However, considering the fact that he was kind enough to leave the prosecutrix alive, this court is of the opinion that life imprisonment can be reduced to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment,” the court stated.
“Accordingly, the criminal appeal is partly allowed and the appellant will be made to suffer the period of 20 years in accordance with the law,” the two-justice bench added.
On Independence Day this year, all 11 people convicted in the Bilkis Bano case and sentenced to life imprisonment were released from a Godhra jail.
Heating petitions challenging the Gujarat government’s remission order, Supreme Court has asked the state to present before it all documents, including the remission order.
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