Reversing a Himachal Pradesh High Court verdict, the Supreme Court has sentenced Anil Kumar alias Nilu—convicted of raping and attempting to kill a woman under Pachhad police station in Sirmaur district of the state in 2015—to life imprisonment.Nilu is also serving a life term in the infamous Gudia murder-cum-rape case (the Kotkhai rape and murder case) that had led to widespread public outrage in the state in 2017.  Nilu, a wood cutter, had raped and murdered a 16-year-old Class 10 student in Shimla’s Kotkhai area.“Having considered the rival contentions and going through the material on record and the evidence which has been dealt in detail in both the orders of the Courts below, we find that the allegations attributed to the respondent (Nilu)are fully proved,” a Bench of Justice A Amanullah and Justice Manmohan said in its August 17 order.“The manner of his conduct is also equally proved. Thus, in the facts and circumstances of the present case, in our considered opinion, the view taken by the Trial Court while sentencing the respondent to life imprisonment, was just and proper and was not required to be interfered with by the High Court,” it said.Allowing the state’s appeal against the high court’s November 20, 2024 order, the top court set aside the high court’s order i reducing the sentence awarded to the respondent from life imprisonment to 10-year rigorous imprisonment and restored the trial court’s order dated January 2, 2021 order awarding life sentence to him.The order came after advocate Anil Nag pointed out on behalf of the state submitted “that this is a strange case where the High Court has not tinkered with the conviction of the respondent primarily under Section 307 read with Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, but has reduced the sentence, that too, not on merits, but only on the ground that the prior conviction of the respondent could not be proved as the certified copy of the judgment of the other case in which the respondent has been convicted, was not placed on record.”Nag submitted that the said ground was absolutely untenable for the reason that if at all there was any doubt in the mind of the Court with regard to his previous conviction, it could have been verified, but the truth could not be obliterated, and that too, in the manner it has been brushed aside by the High Court.Nag contended that in the facts and circumstances. of the case and the manner in which Nilu committed the overt act against the victim, made it a fit case for severe punishment and rightly, the Trial Court had awarded the life imprisonment.Terming the high court’s order as “absolutely unwarranted”, he said the HC could not have reduced the sentence without any discussion on merits of the case just on a specious ground which was factually incorrect.During the hearing, the convict’s counsel admitted that Nilu stood convicted in another case.