“The aggravating circumstances and the barbaric manner in which the four-year-old was killed, clearly outweigh the mitigating circumstances,” says the court.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a review petition of a 55-year-old man who has been sent to the gallows for raping and stoning to death a four-year-old girl in 2008.

A Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said “no case is made out” and dismissed the review plea.

The Bench, comprising Justices R.F. Nariman and U.U. Lalit, said “The aggravating circumstances and the barbaric manner in which the four-year-old was killed, clearly outweigh the mitigating circumstances.”

The convict is currently lodged in the Nagpur jail.

On November 26, 2014, the court upheld the trial court as well as the Bombay High Court judgments awarding death sentence to Vasanta Sampat Dupare in the 2008 Nagpur rape-cum-murder case.

On July 14, 2016, the apex court agreed to examine the plea of Dupare, who claimed that he was not accorded a fair chance to put forth his arguments by the trial court, which sentenced him to death.

While upholding the death penalty awarded to the convict, the top court had said that the rape of a minor is nothing but “a monstrous burial of her dignity in darkness.”

The court had referred to the sequence of events in the case and said that the convict, who was a neighbour, lured the girl, raped her and then battered her to death using two heavy stones.