File education details, HC tells rape-murder convict

The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked rape-murder convict Santosh Kumar Singh to file details about his education after it came to the court's notice that he had been pursuing a two-year LLM course since 2012.

Justice Mukta Gupta questioned how long the petitioner, who had moved a parole plea to write his exams, would take to complete his law course and listed the matter for May 21.

Santosh, son of a senior police officer, had raped and strangled a 26-year-old law student at her Delhi home in January 1996 when he too was pursuing law studies in Delhi University.

Earlier, Delhi government standing counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra opposed his plea for parole, saying that the convict cannot be granted the same since LLM was a two-year course.

Santosh's counsel told the court that his client had been pursuing Master's in Law and that his examinations were set to start from May 22.

Earlier also, he was granted parole to write the exams.

A trial court in Delhi had acquitted Santosh on December 3, 1999, but the High Court held him guilty of rape and murder on October 27, 2006, and awarded him the death sentence.

On October 6, 2010, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction but changed the death sentence to life imprisonment.

--IANS

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