The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed the death sentence awarded to a man in Punjab who had killed six people by drowning them in a canal in the year 2012. This is the first instance since the apex court prioritized hearing in death penalty cases that the apex court has confirmed the sentence. So far, the SC in such matters has commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment in almost a dozemn cases.

The Court termed Singh’s offence as rarest of the rare which deserved the post strongest punishment since, as it noted,  Singh had committed the premeditated murder in cold-blood, taking advantage of the trust of his wife’s relatives. It ruled that death sentence was the only appropriate punishment in this case. The court also noted that Singh was held been found guilty and already given another sentence of death by a CBI trial court for killing a family of four in 2004 by in almost similar circumstances  by pushing  all four unsuspecting victims into a canal and leaving them to drown. The appeal in  this case is pending.

–India legal Bureau