The Supreme Court has said the brutal and inhuman manner of killing alone would not be sufficient

enough to award capital punishment to a murder convict. A bench of justices D K Jain and A K Ganguly converted the death penalty of a co nvict to life term saying that the trial court as well High Court were swayed by the manner in which the victims were murdered in awarding the punishment. In its judgment, the court relied upon a previous Constitution Bench decision sa ying that except in the rarest of rare cases and for special reasons death sentence cannot be imposed as an alternative option to the imposition of life sentence. The court commuted to life term the death penalty on Rajesh Kumar, who had kille d two children - one aged four years and six months and the other eight months of his wifes brother on July 28, 2003 after visiting their home in a north Delhi locality. He had murdered one by slitting his throat after breaking the dressin g tables glass and another by hitting him on the floor. It is no doubt that the murder was committed in this case in a very brutal and in human fashion, but that alone cannot justify infliction of death penalty, Justice Ganguly said, in his judgment. Allowing the appeal against the Delhi High Court verdict, that had confirmed gallows for Kumar, the apex court noted that there was no evidence to suggest the accused was a continuing threat to society. Further, the Bench pointed out several mitigating circumstances even though noti ng this was a dastardly murder of two helpless persons for no fault on their part . It said that there was no pre-meditation in the act of the accused. The murder was committed in the spur of the moment as the accused did not come armed with a weapon. Secondly, it is not known under what circumstances accused entered the h ouse of deceased and what prompted him to assault the boys, the judgment said. The fact that the accused was himself a father of two children also went in his favour in the eyes of the apex court, which said, the cruel manner in which the m urder was committed cannot be the guiding factor in favour of death sentence.