New Delhi, Aug. 7 -- Incestuous sexual violence by a parent tears through the foundational fabric of familial trust and must invite the severest condemnation in both language and sentence, the Supreme Court held on Wednesday, dismissing a petition filed by a man convicted of repeatedly raping his minor daughter "The home, which should be a sanctuary, cannot be permitted to become a site of unspeakable trauma, and the courts must send a clear signal that such offences will be met with an equally unsparing judicial response," said a bench of justices Aravind Kumar and Sandeep Mehta. To entertain a plea for leniency in a case of this nature, the court stressed, would not merely be misplaced, but constitute a betrayal of the court's own constitutional duty to protect the vulnerable. "When a child is forced to suffer at the hands of her own father, the law must speak in a voice that is resolute and uncompromising. There can be no mitigation in sentencing for crimes that subvert the very notion of family as a space of security," said the bench, affirming the life sentence for the convict. Rejecting outright the plea to consider his bail in the 2013 crime, the court added that any leniency in such cases would amount to "a judicial insult to the sanctity of womanhood" and "a betrayal of the constitutional promise made to every child of this country." "When a father who is expected to be a shield, a guardian, a moral compass, becomes the source of the most severe violation of a child's bodily integrity and dignity, the betrayal is not only personal but institutional. The law does not, and cannot, condone such acts under the guise of rehabilitation or reform," it said....