The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on the review plea of a man sentenced to death for raping a 10-year-old girl, and murdering her and her seven-year-old brother in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district nine years ago, PTI reported.

A bench of Justices Rohinton F Nariman, Sanjiv Khanna and Surya Kant asked the state’s counsel to file written submissions within a week. The convict’s advocate, Siddharth Luthra, argued that the court had failed to consider whether the convict could be reformed while confirming Manoharan’s death sentence on August 1 in a 2-1 verdict.

“He has furnished a detailed written submission, which will be considered by us,” the court said. “Yogesh Kanna, counsel appearing on behalf of the state, seeks time to respond to this detailed written submission. We give him one week’s time to do so. Judgment reserved.”

Last month, the top court had stayed Manoharan’s execution till October 16 after his counsel sought to inspect the case records from the trial court before arguing the matter. He scheduled to be hanged on September 20.

In its verdict in August, the top court had said the convict did not show any remorse for the crime, and found it a crime of the “rarest of rare category” that deserves the death penalty.

The crime was also planned by Manoharan’s friend Mohanakrishnan, who was killed in a police encounter. Both of them abducted the 10-year-old girl and her younger brother on October 29, 2010. They raped the girl, made the two children drink poisoned milk, and threw them into a canal.

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