A court in East China's Zhejiang province will rehear a controversial trial that handed down what the public called a lenient sentence to two police civilian support officers who raped a high school girl.

"After reviewing the case, we consider the original verdict improper. We'll fix a date to reopen the trial," the Intermediate People's Court of Huzhou in Zhejiang said in a statement over the weekend.

The two policemen, surnamed Qiu and Cai, received the minimum three years in jail for raping the teenage girl.

Court heard on June 10, the two went out drinking with a girl who had just completed her college entrance exam. They later went to a hotel and raped the girl, who was then drunk and unconscious.

The verdict, handed down by the Nanxun district court in Huzhou on Oct 19, received widespread public criticism and speculation of corruption.

In response to the public uproar, the Huzhou intermediate court on Oct 31 decided to review the case. A team of officials from the city's Party discipline authorities has also been set up to look for possible corruption.

Qiu and Cai are in detention.

According to China News Service, the district court gave them a lenient sentence because the two officers "conducted the crime on the spur of the moment", they turned themselves in afterward and the victim has forgiven them.

However, the public has questioned the sentence, saying law enforcement officers should receive heavier punishment as they should be better aware of the law.

Wu Dong, a partner with Shanghai-based M&A Law Firm, said the sentence was too lenient. The term "temporary and impulsive crime" was a deliberate distortion of the Criminal Law, he said.

According to Chinese criminal law, two people raping by turns is considered a felony and deserves imprisonment of more than 10 years.

"It does not matter whether the two planned the rape or not," he said.

Another lawyer, Suo Jianguo of Shanghai-based Beijing Jin Chen Tong Da Law Firm, agreed that the explanation for the lenient sentence was not well grounded. In his opinion, the two police civilian support officers represent law enforcement and are supposed to set a model for ordinary people.

"Their rape case caused more harm to society and should be severely punished," he said.