The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court recently reduced the sentence of a man convicted of raping a 4-year-old girl to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment considering that he was kind enough to leave the prosecutrix alive.
The petitioner has filed a criminal appeal against 2009 judgement by the Additional Sessions Judge, Indore wherein he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Stating that the criminal appeal by Ramu @ Ramsingh against the judgment was being partly allowed, the bench comprising Justice Subodh Abhyankar and Justice Satyendra Kumar Singh appellant should “be made to suffer the period of 20 years in accordance with law.
Ramsingh who used to sell medicines and herbs was convicted of raping a 4 year old girl inside a tent. As per the court order dated May 31, 2007, Ramsingh lured the girl to the tent by offering her one rupee and raped her.
Claiming that he had been falsely implicated, the counsel appearing for Ramsingh submitted that Ramsingh had already spent 15 years in jail since the time of his arrest, and “his sentence may be reduced to the sentence already undergone by him”.
On the other hand, the counsel appearing for the state stated that the convict deserved no leniency.
“Considering the demonic act of the appellant who appears to have no respect for the dignity of a woman and has the propensity to committee sexual offence even with a girl child aged four, this court does not find it to be a fit case where the sentence can be reduced to the sentence already undergone by him,” the bench noted.
