16 February 2007 :

the Indian Supreme Court sentenced two friends to death, both aged 22, for raping and murdering their 18-year-old neighbour six years ago. Both the trial court and Karnataka High Court had found the offence to qualify as the ‘rarest of rare’, warranting the extreme penalty. Rejecting the convicts’ appeal, the court stated “anything less than a penalty of the greatest severity for any serious crime is thought to be a measure of toleration that is unwarranted and unwise”. The judgment assumes significance in view of the divergent views expressed by different benches on capital punishment.