The Supreme Court on Friday sent to gallows a man for kidnapping, raping, and killing a seven-and-a-half-year-old mentally and physically challenged girl in 2013, saying the crime was of the nature of “extreme depravity which shocks the conscience” and left “no other option but to confirm the death sentence”.

The apex court upheld the death sentence given by the Rajasthan High Court  to convict Manoj Pratap Singh

“We may sum up thus: In the case of the present nature, the crime had been of extreme depravity, which shocks the conscience, particularly looking to the target (a seven-and-a-half-year old mentally and physically challenged girl) and then, looking to the manner of committing murder, where the hapless victim’s head was literally smashed, resulting in multiple injuries, including a fracture of frontal bone...,” said a bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar.

Condemned convict Manoj Pratap Singh, then 28 years of age, had kidnapped the physically and mentally challenged minor girl in front of her parents from their fruit and vegetable vending cart on January 17, 2013, brutally raped her at a secluded place before killing her by smashing the head in Rajsamand district, Rajasthan.

The bench rejected the contention that in the case, hinging on circumstantial evidence, the death penalty should not be awarded saying that if the conviction can be sustained on such proof then the extreme penalty can also be imposed depending on the nature of the offence.

“In the present case, where all the elements surrounding the offence as also all the elements surrounding the offender cut across the balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, we are clearly of the view that there is absolutely no reason to commute the sentence of death to any other sentence of lesser degree,” Justice Maheshwari said.

Even the alternative of awarding the sentence of imprisonment for the whole of the natural life with no remission does not appear justified in view of the nature of crimes committed by the appellant and looking to his incorrigible conduct, added Justice Maheshwari in the verdict.

The top court, in its 129-page judgment, concurred with the findings of the courts below that the offence fell under the rarest of rare categories warranting the imposition of the death penalty on the convict, a native of Maharajganj district in Uttar Pradesh. The verdict was delivered on appeals against the Rajasthan High Court’s May 29, 2015 verdict affirming the conviction and death penalty awarded by the Court of Special Judge, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Cases, Rajsamand.

“The heinous nature of the crime, like that of the present one, in brutal rape and killing of a mentally and physically challenged girl, who was only about seven-and-a-half-year-old, definitely carries excessively aggravating circumstances, particularly when the manner of commission of both the major offences of rape and murder shows the depravity of highest order and would ex facie shock anyone’s conscience,” said the apex court.

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