The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, commuted the death sentence awarded for kidnapping and murder of a 7 year old child to life imprisonment for not less than twenty years without remission of sentence.
A Bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice Hima Kohli and Justice PS Narasimha observed that though the crime was grave and unpardonable, ‘the ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine requires that the death sentence not be imposed only by taking into account the grave nature of crime but only if there is no possibility of reformation in a criminal’.