New Delhi: Within a week of rejecting a plea to save Dhananjoy Chatterjee from gallows, the Supreme Court has commuted to life term the death sentence awarded to a person convicted of raping and murdering a four-and-half year old girl.

A Bench comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice AR Lakshmanan yesterday (Aug 17, 2004) partially allowed the appeal of Rahul alias Raosaheb and commuted the death sentence awarded to him to life imprisonment.

Appearing for the accused, counsel K Radhakrishnan and Sudhir Kulshrestha contended that the accused was only 24 years of age in 1999 when the crime was committed and that the prosecution case was doubtful as it was entirely based on circumstantial evidence.

They also contended that the accused had no previous case of conviction and pleaded that the death penalty be commuted to life imprisonment.

A Pune court had categorised the case as rarest of the rare as the accused, after violating a defenceless girl, had murdered her.

The Bombay High Court had upheld the conviction and confirmed the death sentence. The accused had appealed against the High Court order.

The accused, who was a neighbour of the girl in Pune, had enticed her to come to his house on the pretext of giving her chocolate and raped her before murdering.

Appearing for the State of Maharashtra, advocate Mukesh Giri termed the crime as heinous and diabolic and pleaded that the convict's death sentence should not be altered.