HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court (HC) recently reduced the sentence of a convict from life imprisonment to 10 years rigorous imprisonment, while stating that his offence did not fall in the rarest of the rare cases category. The bench comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A Abhishek Reddy was hearing the accused Banoth Ravi’s petition.
In 2014, Ravi, a farmer, proposed to marry the victim, a minor girl eking out her livelihood by doing manual work. Though she ignored his advances, he lured her into his relative’s house by stating that he would marry her. There, he raped her several times. On October 18, she escaped from the clutches of the accused and reached home and told to her parents about the incident. During the course of investigation, the accused was arrested and was put up for trial. After appreciating the evidence, the trial court convicted and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Aggrieved with the same, he filed the present appeal before the high court.
The counsel for appellantaccused contended that the prosecution has miserably failed to establish its case for offences under the said sections of IPC and POCSO Act, and therefore, the appellant deserves to be acquitted of the said offences. On the other hand, the public prosecutor contended that as long as the gist of the prosecution is revealed in the complaint, the complainant cannot be faulted.
While upholding the conviction of the appellant-accused, the bench reduced the sentence from life imprisonment to 10 years rigorous imprisonment in the case. The bench made it clear that the appellant who is already in jail, that he should not be granted the benefit of parole by prison authorities or by the court during the remaining part of the sentence.
No parole for the accused
The bench made it clear that the appellant, who is already in jail, should not be granted the benefit of parole by prison authorities or by the court during the remaining part of the sentence.