INDIA: BENCH COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE

the Madras High Court Bench in India commuted the death sentence imposed on a 25 year old man to life imprisonment. The man from Thanjavur was convicted of murdering his grandmother, father and the latter’s third wife on April 6, 2006, over a property dispute. A Division Bench comprising Justice M. Chockalingam and Justice S. Palanivelu said that it was not a rarest of rare offence warranting capital punishment. “The number of persons killed cannot be a sole criterion for awarding the death sentence,” they said.