The Supreme Court refused to award death penalty to the convict who committed rape and murder of a nine-year-old in 2019 in Telangana, nearly two months before the Parliament amended the POCSO Act prescribing extreme sentence for the crime.

The Telangana government has moved to the apex court against the Hyderabad High Court’s November 12, 2019, order which commuted the death sentence to the convicted 25-year-old, who was awarded life sentence.

Last year, Polepaka Praveen alias Pawan, the youth, was awarded death penalty in a trial that the lower court completed in a record time of 48 days, after the crime was committed on June 18-19 last year, NDTV reported.

‘Firstly, we fail to see how retrospective effect can be granted when the punishment is to operate prospectively and logically so. Even otherwise, the punishment of not being released till his last breath is punitive enough to send a signal to the society and it cannot be that only the death sentence can send a right signal,’ said a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph.

‘We are of the view that the High Court has deemed it appropriate to impose the life sentence till the last breath, this Court under Article 136 of the Constitution of India should not interfere only for conversion of the same into again a death sentence was imposed by the trial court,’ the bench added.

The counsel appearing for the state submitted that the imposition of the death sentence was included in the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 with effect from August 6, 2019. Further, the man committed the crime on June 18-19 last year.

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