awarded to the appellant. This was decided on its facts and dismissed. 8. Feeling aggrieved by the dismissal of his appeal, the appellant preferred Review Petition (Crl.) No.245 of 2010 but that was dismissed by an order dated 13th April, 2010. 9. In view of the decision of this Court in Mohd. Arif alias Ashfaq v. The Registrar Supreme Court of India & others1 the said review petition was re-opened for consideration and that is how it is before us. Submissions 10. Learned counsel for the appellant raised a variety of grounds for commuting the death sentence awarded to the appellant into one of life sentence. It was contended that the case was one of circumstantial evidence and therefore the sentence of death should not be awarded. It was also contended that this Court as well the High Court and the Trial Court failed to consider the probability of reformation of the appellant. It was also contended that the prior history and criminal antecedents of the appellant were not relevant in awarding the sentence. It was submitted that the Trial Judge had erroneously described the appellant as a hardened criminal. In fact, we find that learned counsel for the appellant is correct in this submission since there is absolutely nothing on record to show that the appellant had previously committed any crime whatsoever. Indeed, there 1 (2014) 9 SCC 737 R.P. (Crl.) No.245 of 2010 in Crl. Appeal No. 811 of 2009 Page 6 of 19

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