The Madras High Court on Tuesday modified from death to life the sentence imposed on a convict for having sexually abused his minor daughter from the age of seven to 12 years when she attained puberty and thereafter subjecting her to penetrative sexual assault leading to pregnancy and forced miscarriage.
A Division Bench of Justices S.S. Sundar and Sunder Mohan held that the crime, though gruesome, would not fall under the category of ‘rarest of rare case’ or within any of the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court, in the famous Bachan Singh and Machchi Singh cases, to award capital punishment.
“The trial court was carried away by the act of the father who had committed grave sexual offences against his daughter... However, it is settled law that merely because a crime is heinous per se may not be a sufficient reason for imposition of death penalty without considering mitigating factors and other circumstances,” the Bench wrote.
