{"id":9227,"date":"2026-07-29T11:41:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T11:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/?p=9227"},"modified":"2026-07-29T11:41:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T11:41:45","slug":"nagaur-child-rape-murder-convict-gets-no-relief-from-rajasthan-hc-death-sentence-commuted-to-life-imprisonment-till-natural-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/nagaur-child-rape-murder-convict-gets-no-relief-from-rajasthan-hc-death-sentence-commuted-to-life-imprisonment-till-natural-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Nagaur Child Rape-Murder Convict Gets No Relief from Rajasthan HC, Death Sentence Commuted to Life imprisonment Till Natural Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jodhpur:<\/strong> The Rajasthan High Court has upheld the conviction of Dinesh in the widely reported case involving the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a seven-year-old girl in Nagaur district. However, it commuted the death sentence awarded by the trial court to life imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court also made it clear that the convict will spend the rest of his life in prison and will not be entitled to any remission or early release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judgment was delivered by a Division Bench of Justice Vineet Kumar Mathur and Justice Chandrashekhar Sharma while hearing both the State government’s murder reference seeking confirmation of the death sentence and the convict’s appeal challenging his conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Special POCSO Court had earlier convicted Dinesh under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including kidnapping, wrongful confinement, murder, and causing disappearance of evidence, along with aggravated penetrative sexual assault under the POCSO Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had awarded him the death penalty for the offences of murder and aggravated sexual assault, along with separate sentences for the remaining offences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the High Court, the defence argued that the accused did not receive a fair trial because the proceedings were completed in undue haste. It claimed that charges were framed immediately after the chargesheet was filed, evidence was recorded continuously, and the judgment was delivered without giving the defence sufficient time to prepare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defence sought a fresh trial, contending that there were no eyewitnesses, the prosecution’s “last seen” theory was unreliable, no injuries indicating a struggle were found on the accused, and the medical evidence did not fully support the prosecution’s case. It also argued that the case did not fall within the “rarest of rare” category required for imposing the death penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The State opposed these submissions, arguing that the victim was last seen with the accused, who failed to give a satisfactory explanation during his statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It submitted that the FIR was promptly registered after the child’s disappearance and that the investigation was conducted lawfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prosecution relied on forensic evidence, including FSL reports, DNA analysis, samples collected from the crime scene, and the clothes of both the accused and the victim, to establish the accused’s involvement. It also pointed to the post-mortem report and doctors’ testimony confirming that the child had been sexually assaulted and murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The State further argued that the accused had been given full opportunity to cross-examine witnesses and had never complained during the trial about a lack of time or opportunity to defend himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After examining the evidence, the High Court held that the oral, medical, and scientific evidence on record clearly established the accused’s guilt. It rejected the defence’s argument that the trial had been unfair or rushed, noting that the accused had been allowed to cross-examine every witness and had never sought additional time, recalled witnesses, or requested permission to produce further evidence during the trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court observed that although the case was based on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution had established a complete chain of circumstances pointing only to the guilt of the accused. It found that the forensic evidence, including DNA analysis and FSL reports, strongly linked the accused to the crime, while the post-mortem report and medical evidence confirmed that the child had been sexually assaulted and murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court also held that minor inconsistencies in witness statements or the investigation were not sufficient to weaken the prosecution’s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While upholding the conviction, the High Court ruled that the case did not satisfy the strict “rarest of rare” test laid down by the Supreme Court for awarding the death penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bench observed that although the crime was extremely brutal, inhuman, and shocking, the gravity of the offence alone could not justify capital punishment. It said that courts must also consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the death sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accordingly, the High Court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment for the convict’s entire natural life. At the same time, considering the brutality of the offence, it directed that the convict would not be eligible for remission or premature release and would remain in prison for the rest of his life. The Court also imposed a fine of \u20b950,000 for each offence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jodhpur: The Rajasthan High Court has upheld the conviction of Dinesh in the widely reported case involving the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a seven-year-old girl in Nagaur district. However, it commuted the death sentence awarded by the trial court to life imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life. The Court also made it … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wppp_is_locked":false,"_wppp_selected_plans":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,69],"tags":[1760,46,1547,1615,1762,1542,1546,48,1543,1757,1758,1761,1759,352,659,43,228],"class_list":["post-9227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-rajasthan-high-court","tag-child-rape-and-murder","tag-criminal-law","tag-death-penalty","tag-dna-evidence","tag-fsl-report","tag-justice-chandrashekhar-sharma","tag-justice-vineet-kumar-mathur","tag-legal-news","tag-life-imprisonment","tag-nagaur-child-rape-case","tag-natural-life-imprisonment","tag-no-remission","tag-pocso-act","tag-pocso-court","tag-rajasthan-hc","tag-rajasthan-high-court","tag-rajasthan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9229,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227\/revisions\/9229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}