A three-judge bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar passed the judgment on the ground that there is a possibility of reformation since the convict did not have any criminal antecedents and was not a hardened criminal.
“When the appellant is not shown to be a person having criminal antecedents and is not a hardened criminal, it cannot be said that there is no probability of him being reformed and rehabilitated. His unblemished jail conduct and having a family of wife, children and aged father would also indicate towards the probability of his reformation,” the Court said.
It would, therefore, be unsafe to treat this case as falling in ‘rarest of rare’ category, the Court added.
Source: Barandbench
