Three persons wiped out an entire family in cold blood...

Three persons wiped out an entire family in cold blood due to sibling rivalry and were sentenced to death. Their sentence was upheld by the Patna (eastern India) High Court. But the Supreme Court of India commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment saying the case did not fall within rarest of rare category.
Ram Anup Singh had minor disputes with his brother Madan Singh who was living with his wife, daughter and son-in-law. On March 27, 1997, apparently with no provocation, Ram Anup went to the village of Madan with his two sons Babban and Lallan and gunned down the entire family of his brother.
The High Court had commuted Ram Anup's death sentence to life imprisonment but upheld the death penalty to his two sons. The Court had said though Ram Anup was armed with a gun he did not fire at the deceased.
Hearing the appeal filed by the convicts, a three-judge Bench comprising Justice M B Shah, Justice B P Singh and Justice H K Sema said "We have a lurking suspicion that something must have happened on account of which the appellants resorted to the mass killing."
Commuting the death sentence of the two sons but upholding the conviction of all three for murder, Justice Singh, writing for the Bench, said "there is no evidence on record to suggest that the appellants are a menace to the society as evident by their past record.
"It is not possible to conclude that they are those who cannot be reformed or rehabilitated and that they constitute a continuing threat to the society," the Bench said as reason for commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment.