Supreme Court shows leniency towards Punjab rapist

The Supreme Court on Monday showed leniency to a farmer who had raped and murdered a seven-year-old child in a Punjab village three years back.

The court observed that "the manner in which the girl was raped may be brutal but it could have been a momentary lapse on the part of the accused, seeing a lonely girl at a secluded place".

Amrit Singh had been sentenced to death by the trial court in Mansa and the High Court for committing the diabolic crime that squarely falls in the 'rarest of rare' category.

The girl's body was found in a sugarcane field. Investigators had pointed out that she had resisted the 31-year-old Amrik Singh. Some black hair was found in her hand, which they felt was Singh's.

He had refused to offer his hair sample for a DNA test.

The victim's body bore the sign of extreme brutality. She was smothered and grievously assaulted by Singh. His lawyer had sought to give a twist to the case saying some other persons who were not arrested might have raped and killed her.

A Bench of Justices S B Sinha and Dalveer Bhandari rejected his defence and reduced the death sentence into rigorous life imprisonment.

“Offence of rape took place on an agricultural field. She might have suffered a lot of pain.  She might have resisted also. She might have been gagged.  Possibilities of some assault on her person cannot be ruled out.  It would, however, be improper to hold that Amrik Singh killed her intentionally,'' the judges said.

"The death occurred not as a result of strangulation but because of excessive bleeding.  Deceased had bled half a litre of blood," the judges noted while commuting the death penalty into life sentence.

"Imposition of death penalty in a case of this nature, in our opinion, was, thus, improper.  Even otherwise, it cannot be said to be a rarest of rare case," the judges said.