Convict to walk free after Supreme Court holds him juvenile in minor's rape, murder case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday accepted a report concluding a convict was a minor when he allegedly raped and murdered a 10-year-old girl in 2013 in UP's Faizabad and allowed him to walk free.

While upholding the conviction, a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar set aside the life imprisonment imposed on the convict by the Allahabad High Court.

A trial court had awarded him death penalty in the case on May 17, 2018.

The case was then referred to the Allahabad High Court for confirmation of the capital punishment as mandated under the code of criminal procedure.

The Lucknow bench of the High Court commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment without the reprieve of remission.

While taking note of the appeals, the top court had asked the Juvenile Justice Board at Faizabad to conduct due verification of the age of the accused and submit a report on the claim of juvenility.

On Thursday, the bench perused the report which said records showed the convict was born on July 5, 1995, and was less than 18 years of age on the date of the crime on January 1, 2013.

"We may note that the counsel for the state of Uttar Pradesh does not contest the report given by the JJB. We have also examined the said report and the reasons given therein and do not find any good ground and reason to take a different view. The appellant, X, is accordingly directed to be treated as a juvenile on the date of the occurrence/commission of offence,” the bench held.

The accused spent over a decade in jail before his release was ordered by the apex court.

"Accordingly, the conviction of the appellant, X, is upheld but the sentence imposed on him, treating him as an adult as on the date of the occurrence/commission of the offence, is treated as cancelled/waived…The appellant, X, is directed to be released in accordance with law, if not warranted to be detained in any other matter,” it ordered.

On January 29, 2013, the victim, failed to return home from school and her body was discovered later in the evening in a sugarcane field, with a scarf wrapped around her neck.

An FIR was lodged by her uncle and investigations led to the appellant's arrest.

While upholding the conviction, the high court evaluated whether the crime met the "rarest of the rare" threshold required to impose the death penalty.

The bench observed while life imprisonment was the rule, death sentence was an exception.

Circumstances of both the crime and the offender must be weighed, the high court said, though the crime was heinous, death penalty was not warranted in this case