INDIA. SUPREME COURT COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE INTO LIFE TERM

India’s Supreme Court reduced to life imprisonment the death penalty awarded to Amrit Singh, a Punjab man found guilty of the rape and murder of a minor girl, saying it could have been a result of a momentary lapse on the part of the convict.
"Imposition of death penalty in a case of this nature, in our opinion, was thus, improper," the Bench said.
The 31-one-year-old convict had raped the victim in a cotton field in the evening of November 3, 2003. He was arrested on the basis of a statement of a witness who had seen the victim in his company on the same evening.
An Additional Sessions Court sentenced Singh to death for rape and murder in March 2005 and the Punjab and Haryana High Court confirmed the sentence in August of the same year.
"The offence may look a heinous, but under no circumstance, it can be said to be a rarest of rare cases," the apex court said.