Chandigarh, Nov. 29 -- A Chandigarh court sentenced a taxi driver to life imprisonment for the 2010 rape-murder of a 21-year-old MBA student, observing that a "requisite sentence has to be imposed upon the convict to protect the society as a legitimate response to the collective conscience". The court of additional district and sessions judge Dr Yashika on Thursday convicted the accused, identified as Monu Kumar (39), under sections 302 (murder) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The court pronounced the quantum of punishment on Friday, sentencing him to life imprisonment alongside a fine of Rs.1 lakh. The judge said the convict did not deserve any sympathy, however, the case does not fall in the "rarest of rare" category to deserve the death penalty. "This Court is of the view that requisite sentence has to be imposed upon the convict to protect the society as a legitimate response to the collective conscience. in other words it is an obligation on the Court to the society which has reposed faith in the Court of law to curtail evil," the court said. Along with this case, Kumar has been booked in a separate case of rape-murder and murder, the trials for which are ongoing. The accused's conviction comes 15 years after the 21-year-old victim was found dead in Chandigarh's Sector 38 on July 30, 2010. Having evaded arrest for over a decade, Kumar was nailed through semen preserved from the victim's body. He was apprehended in May 2024 after a similar crime in Maloya in 2022 revived the probe, police said. Forensic analysis concluded that the semen samples from the bodies of both victims - the MBA student and a 40-year-old in the 2022 case - belonged to the same man....