CHENNAI: Considering the socio-economic status such as age and economic condition of an accused in a case relating to the rape of a minor, a division bench of the Madras HC has reduced the 20-year jail term to 14 .
When an appeal from Madhavan (27) of Ariyalur challenging the orders of the Fast Track-cum-Mahila Court came up on Thursday, his counsel told the bench of Justices S Nagamuthu and N Authinathan that the accused was already married and had two children.
He belonged to a downtrodden community and was also a poor person. All this amounted to mitigating circumstances.
But the judges said it was not a mitigating circumstance. They, however, took his background into consideration.