The Madhya Pradesh High Court last week modified the recent observation made by it in a controversial order in which it had said that a rape convict was “kind enough” to leave the survivor alive without taking her life.

A bench of Justices Subodh Abhyankar and Satyendra Kumar Singh had, by way of its judgment on October 18, reduced the life sentence of a rape convict to 20 years’ jail after observing that he was kind enough to leave the prosecutrix alive.This had generated a lot of controversy.

After the outrage, on October 27, the Court suo motu decided to modify the order by removing the observation about the convict’s kindness.

“It is brought to the notice of this court that certain inadvertent mistake has crept in the judgment delivered by this court on 18.10.2022, wherein the word “Kind” has been used to refer to the appellant who stands convicted of rape…It is apparent that the aforesaid mistake is obviously inadvertent in the context, as this court has already held the act of the appellant as demonic,” the Court said in its October 27 order.

The Court, therefore, modified the sentence to read:

“However, considering the fact that he did not cause any other physical injury to the victim, this court is of the opinion that the life imprisonment can be reduced to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment.”

“In view of the same, para 12 the judgement dated 18.10.2022 is hereby modified/corrected to the extent as aforesaid only. Thus, para 12 of the judgment dated 18.102022 shall stand replaced with the aforesaid modified para 12. This order be read conjointly with the order dated 18.10.2022,” observed the Court.

The rest of the judgment including the reduction in sentence was left unchanged.

The October 18 judgment was passed on an appeal by appellant Ramsingh against the judgement passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Indore which had convicted the appellant for committing rape on a girl under twelve years of age under the Indian Penal Code.

The Court majorly relied on prosecution witnesses evidences and medical report by the doctor who examined the victim, to conclude that the guilt of the appellant was proved beyond reasonable doubt.

However, it had reduced the sentence to 20 years jail term from life imprisonment in view of the fact that the appellant had not killed the girl.