India, Feb. 17 -- The Madras high court has upheld the conviction and life sentence of a couple for poisoning and killing their nine-year-old daughter, who suffered from a mental health condition, saying that parental hardship does not justify "extinguishing a child's life" and no one has the right to take the law into their own hands.

A bench of Justices GK Ilanthiraiyan and R Poornima (Madurai bench) said on February 13 that the court was not insensitive to the emotional and practical difficulties the couple may have faced in raising a child with disabilities. It added that such hardship could not justify taking the child's life.

The bench observed that the child had been born to the accused and it was their "bounden duty" to care for...