The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea by a death row convict to review a 2014 judgement awarding him the capital punishment for raping and murdering a four-year-old girl.
Vasanta Sampat Dupare, who is currently lodged in the Nagpur central jail, urged the court to reconsider the 2014 judgement.
Through senior advocate Anup Bhambhani, Dupare contended that mitigating circumstances such as the chances of reform, his past records in jail and the fact that he was 47 years at the time of the incident in 2008 were not duly considered at the time of the sentence.
He also contended that his conviction and sentence were pronounced on the same day, and that he was not given sufficient time to act.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra rejected his plea and affirmed the sentence. “We have given anxious consideration to the material on record, but find that the aggravating circumstances, namely the extreme depravity and the barbaric manner in which the crime was committed, and the fact that the victim was a helpless girl of four years clearly outweigh the mitigating circumstances now brought on record,” the bench, also comprising Justices R F Nariman and U U Lalit, said.
In 2014, the apex court had dismissed the appeal filed by the petitioner against a judgement by the Bombay High Court in 2012.
The high court had confirmed the capital punishment awarded to Dupare by a trial court in Nagpur.
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