Priyadarshini Mattoo Case: Capital Punishment Commuted

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NEW DELHI, INDIA (GaeaTimes.com)- The 1996 rape and murder case of Priyadarshini Mattoo took a new turn when the death sentence of convict Santosh Kumar Singh was commuted to life sentence by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. While explaining the decision to reduce the punishment that should be meted out to Santosh Kumar Singh, who is a lawyer by profession and the son of a senior police officer, the court emphasized that the death sentence that was awarded by the Delhi High Court had to be commuted as that matter could not be considered to be a rarest of rare case which called for a capital punishment.

While reading out the verdict in the 14-year-old Priyadarshini Mattoo rape and murder case, Bench of Justices H.S. Bedi and C.K. Prasad said that decision of commuting the punishment was taken keeping in view that a lesser punishment should be awarded if the court ‘feels some difficulty in awarding one or the other.’ At the same time, it was pointed out that the ‘difficulty’ in awarding the capital punishment to Santosh Kumar Singh stems from the fact that he was just 24 at the time of incident and after he was acquitted in the case, he married and became the father of a girl child.

Priyadarshini Mattoo was a law college student completing her fifth and final semester when she was raped and killed by Santosh Kumar Singh way back on January 23, 1996. A trial court had rejected the charges against the accused and acquitted him on December 3, 1999. However, the Delhi High Court later reversed the decision of the trial court in the case and awarded capital punishment to Santosh Kumar Singh.