The Supreme Court has stayed the execution of capital punishment awarded to a man, convicted of raping a seven-year-old minor girl in Madhya Pradesh in 2018.
A bench headed by Justice UU Lalit passed the order while hearing a plea filed by the convict against the Madhya Pradesh High Court verdict, which had upheld the death sentence awarded to him and one other convict by the trial court for gang-raping the minor.
“Pending further consideration, the execution of sentence of death imposed upon the appellant is stayed. Let an intimation to that effect be sent to the concerned prison immediately,” said the bench, also comprising Justices SR Bhat and Bela M Trivedi.
The top court directed the state to place before it by March 1, 2022 the report of probation officer relating to the convict and also the report of jail administration about the nature of work done by him while in prison.
The bench, which observed that psychological evaluation report of the convict be obtained, asked the director of an Indore-based hospital to constitute a team for his psychiatric evaluation.
It said the report be placed before it by March 1.
The top court said that jail authorities shall co-operate with the team of experts for facilitating access and due evaluation of the convict.
“List for final disposal on March 22, 2022 before the appropriate court after seeking requisite directions from the CJI (Chief Justice of India),” the bench said in its December 15 order.
The high court, in its verdict delivered in September this year, had affirmed the death sentence awarded by the trial court in August 2018 to two convicts in the case.
In June 2018, the grandmother of the girl had lodged a report at a police station in Mandsaur that her granddaughter was missing from her school premises after the classes were over for the day.
The police registered the case and on the next date, the girl was found in an injured condition and was taken to a hospital.
The girl was provided treatment and she narrated the incident to the police about she was taken to a secluded spot and was raped.
The trial court, after considering the evidence, awarded death penalty to the two convicts.
“The facts of the present case reveal an ominous plot hatched by the appellants seeking to satiate their lust by breaching the confidence of the minor prosecutrix girl and then heaping miseries upon her by committing such forceful aggravated penetrative sexual assault which is most ruthless in nature,” the high court had said in its verdict while confirming the death sentence.
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