India, July 17 -- PRAYAGRAJ The Allahabad high court has upheld the conviction of a man in connection with a 1979 gang-rape of a minor but reduced his substantive sentence from 7.5 years to four years of rigorous imprisonment (RI), noting the 43-year pendency of the criminal appeal and the surviving convict's age, which is 71 years now.

Justice Santosh Rai partly allowed the criminal appeal filed by the accused - Ram Swarup. He was directed to surrender and serve out the remaining sentence.

Facts of the case were that on the intervening night of October 31 and November 1, 1979, the minor prosecutrix, aged between 15 and 17 years, was abducted at knife-point by three co-villagers - Kali Charan, Ram Lal and Ram Swarup (appellant before th...