JUDGMENT

SURYA KANT, J.

These review petitions are directed against the judgment dated 01.08.2019 passed in Manoharan v. State by Inspector of Police, (2019) 7 SCC 716 wherein this three-Judge Bench had affirmed conviction of the accused Manoharan for offences punishable under Sections 302, 376(2)(f) and (g) and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (in short “IPC”) and by majority upheld the death sentence confirmed by the High Court.

FACTUAL MATRIX

2. Brief facts of the present case are as follows:

‘X’, a ten-year-old girl and ‘Y’, her 7-year-old brother were enrolled in Classes V and II respectively in a private school at Coimbatore and would commute around 7:45 a.m. in a pickup vehicle owned by one Kartikeyan (PW-2). On 29.10.2010 the children left as usual with their school bags and lunch boxes and stood about two-hundred feet away from their home, in front of the Vinayakar Temple. Around 8:00 a.m., PW-2 came to the designated pick-up spot but did not find the children there. He contacted the children’s father, Ranjith Kumar Jain (PW-5), over mobile to enquire about their absence. Being in Hyderabad, PW-5 was unable to provide an immediate reply to the query of PW-2 and hence called his