2010 Coimbatore rape-murder case: SC dismisses review plea of death row convict Manoharan

In a majority judgment of 2:1, a bench headed by Justice R F Nariman, said there are no grounds to review their verdict upholding the death penalty of convict Manoharan.
Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. (Photo| Parveen Negi, EPS)
Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. (Photo| Parveen Negi, EPS)

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a review plea of Manoharan against the death sentence awarded to him for raping and killing a 10-year old girl and her brother in Coimbatore in 2010.

A three-judge bench by the majority of 2:1 held that the crime committed by the convict comes in a rarest of a rare case and he does not deserve any sympathy and refused to review its verdict to award him the death sentence.

Justices R F Nariman and Suryakant dismissed the review plea but Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who was also part of the three-judge bench, said he had a different view on the point of the sentence only.

Last month the court had stayed Manoharan's scheduled hanging, as the latter had sought review of the August verdict awarding his death penalty.

On August 1, the court had awarded Manoharan death penalty for horribly gang-raping a 10-year-old girl along with a co-accused. 

The duo killed the girl and her seven-year-old brother by throwing them in a canal with their hands tied.

The apex court upheld the verdicts of the trial court and the Madras High Court to award death penalty to the convict saying that the offence fell under the rarest of rare category.

Manoharan and co-accused Mohanakrishnan, who was later shot dead in an encounter, had picked up the 10-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother from outside a temple on October 29, 2010, when they were going to school.

They had tied the hands of both minor siblings and brutally gang-raped the girl before trying to kill them by poisoning.

As they did not die of poisoning, the accused tied their hands and threw them to Parambikulam-Axhiyar Project canal where they drowned.

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