Sentencing Roy to life in prison, a Kolkata court said Monday that the case didn’t meet the criteria to be classified as ‘rarest of rare’, and therefore, did not merit death penalty.

Roy was on January 18 convicted under charges which entailed a minimum sentence of life imprisonment, while the maximum could be capital punishment.

A sessions court in Kolkata will pronounce today the quantum of sentence for Sanjay Roy. Follow The Hindu’s live updates

An Indian court has sentenced the man convicted of raping and murdering a female doctor at a Kolkata hospital to life in prison.

An Indian court awarded a life sentence on Monday to a police volunteer convicted of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the hospital where she worked in the eastern city of Kolkata, rejecting demands for the death penalty and saying it was not a rare crime.

An Indian court on Monday sentenced a police volunteer to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of an on-duty doctor last year – a crime that sparked nationwide protests. Sanjay Roy, 33, plans to appeal the judgment in a higher court.

Judge Anirban Das said crime did not fall under “rarest of the rare” category as justification for not giving death penalty to Sanjay Roy.

The Sealdah Court sentenced Sanjoy Roy, the accused in the Kolkata trainee doctor rape and murder case to life imprisonment. The court was of the view that the incident was not ‘rarest of rare’ case to grant death penalty for the convict.

The rape and murder shocked the nation, igniting protests from junior doctors in West Bengal and demands for justice and improved safety measures in government hospitals.

Sanjay Roy was on Saturday held guilty of sexually assaulting the trainee doctor and throttling her to death in August last year.