According to the prosecution, on January 7, 1997, in village Rakri Tola in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh, the accused Jai Kumar locked up his mother and then entered the room where his sister-in-law was asleep with her eight-year-old daughter.

The mother said, in her evidence before the trial court, that through her room window, she saw her son attempting to rape her daughter-in-law, who was in an advanced stage of pregnancy.

When his attempts were resisted, he first killed her by severing her head with a sharp-edged weapon and then took the child to a jungle nearby to kill her.

A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice A S Anand and Justices M Srinivasan and Umesh Banerjee, confirming the death sentence, said, "In the presentcase, the savage nature of the crime has shocked our judicial conscience.

"The murder was cold-blooded and brutal without any provocation. It certainly makes it the rarest of rare cases...," Justice Banerjee said, in the judgement.

The bench observed, further, "Can there be any mitigating circumstances on account of such a ghastly act? The answer cannot but be in the negative."

The bench said, "The mother was bolted inside the room and watched as a bewildered spectator from the cracks in the window. It is the mother who had given evidence about the `bad characteristics' and the reputation of the accused in the locality.

"The sister-in-law has been murdered along with an innocent child. Is this a man who deserves any sympathy from society; is this a man who can correct himself? The courts ought to permit him to lead a decent life after he serves the sentence. The mother's evidence becomes material and it is on this score that we are unable to record our concurrence with the submissions of amicuscuriae S Muralidhar that there are some mitigating circumstances, and there is a likelihood of the accused being reformed or rehabilitated," the bench observed.

"Incidentally, the High Court has described the accused as `a living danger' and we cannot agree more therewith in view of the gruesome act as noticed above," the bench said.

The Apex Court said, "The facts establish the depravity and criminality of the accused in no uncertain terms, no regard being had for the precious life of the young child either. The compassionate ground of the accused being of 22 years of age cannot, in the facts of the matter, be termed to be at all relevant."