24 January 2007 :

the Indian Supreme Court has commuted the capital punishment of two convicts to life terms in the sensational Barnali Deb rape-and-murder case. The duo had disposed of the body of the seven-year-old girl in a septic tank after raping her at a bus shelter in Guwahati in July 2002. In a judgment which has wide ramifications for criminal justice in the country, the Supreme Court has held that the death sentence should not be awarded if conviction is based on circumstantial evidence.