'Kind to leave girl alive': MP High Court reduces life sentence of rape convict

In an unsettling turn of events, the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court reduced the life sentence of a rape convict to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment stating that he was “kind enough to leave the girl alive”.

Based on a report by Bar and Bench, the 40-year-old convict, Ram Singh, was arrested over the rape of a minor, a four-year-old girl, in Indore in 2007 and was sentenced to life by an additional sessions judge in April 2009. Singh moved the High Court, challenging the order in May 2009.

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The bench of Justices Subodh Abhyankar and Satyendra Kumar Singh, who heard the plea on September 28, observed that: “Considering the demonic act of the appellant who appears to have no respect for the dignity of a woman and has the propensity to commit sexual offence even with a girl child aged 4 years, this Court does not find it to be a fit case where the sentence can be reduced to the sentence already undergone by him, however, considering the fact that he was kind enough to leave the prosecutrix (girl) alive, this court is of the opinion that the life imprisonment can be reduced to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment.”

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The incidents leading up to the case took place near Indore’s ITI ground on May 31, 2007. The survivor had stepped out of the hut with her grandmother. Singh, who was 25 at the time, used to stay in a tent close by and is said to have lured the girl into the tent promising to give her a rupee and then raped her. A medical report of the girl had confirmed rape.

Ram Singh has already completed 15 years in jail. Singh’s lawyer reasoned that he was falsely accused in the case and that apart from eyewitnesses there is no evidence to link him with the offence.