Death for minor's rapist upheld

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence awarded to a man from Nagpur for rape-cum-murder of a four-year-old girl.

The apex court said the crime had shocked the collective conscience of the society, and that it does fall under the rarest of rare category.

A three-judge bench presided over by Justice Dipak Misra said that the manner of offence committed by the appellant Vasanta Sampat Dupare showed his “premeditation, proclivity and rapacious desire.”

The apex court dismissed the appeal filed by the petitioner against the 2012 Bombay High Court (HC) order. The HC had upheld the capital punishment awarded by the trial court in Nagpur.

“A helpless and defenceless child gets raped and murdered because of the acquaintance of the appellant with the people of the society. This is not only betrayal of an individual trust but destruction and devastation of social trust. It is perversity in its enormity,” the bench said.

Finding no mitigating circumstances in the instant case, the court said that the enormity of the offence committed by the 47-year-old married man, invited “the extreme abhorrence and indignation of the collective.” “The crime speaks of depravity, degradation and uncommonality. It is diabolical and barbaric. The crime was committed in an inhuman manner,” the bench said.

“When the crime is diabolical in nature and invites abhorrence of the collective, it shocks the judicial conscience and impels it to react keeping in view the collective conscience, cry of the community for justice and the intense indignation of the manner in which the brutal crime is committed,” the bench said, confirming the death sentence.

Barbaric act

According to the prosecution, the appellant took away the victim, daughter of his acquaintance, on his bicycle on April 3, 2008, in the name of offering her chocolates.
He ravished the child at a secluded place and bludgeoned her to death.
“The barbaric act of the appellant does not remotely show any concern for the precious life of a young minor child who had really not seen life. The criminality of the conduct of the appellant is not only depraved and debased, but can have a menacing effect on the society. It is calamitous,” the bench said.
DH News Service