NEW DELHI, May 5:
The Supreme Court today upheld the death penalty to four convicts in the sensational December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old woman, saying the “brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature” of the crime could create “tsunami of shock” to destroy a civilised society.
The paramedic student was gangraped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in South Delhi by a gang of six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out naked. She succumbed to her injuries on December 29 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
Observing that the accused had found her as “an object for enjoyment” and “ravish her as they liked, treat her as they felt” to get “gross sadistic and beastly instinctual pleasure”, the court said such acts were “bound to shock the collective conscience”.
The “loathsome bestiality of passion ruled the mindset of the appellants (convicts) to commit a crime which can summon with immediacy ‘tsunami’ of shock in the mind of the collective and destroy the civilised marrows of the milieu in entirety,” it said.
“When we cautiously, consciously and anxiously weigh the aggravating circumstances and the mitigating factors, we are compelled to arrive at the singular conclusion that the aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances now brought on record.
“Therefore, we conclude and hold that the High Court has correctly confirmed the death penalty and we see no reason to differ with the same,” a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said.
While Justice Misra wrote the judgement for himself and Justice Ashok Bhushan, the lone woman judge in the Apex Court, Justice R Banumathi wrote a separate and concurring verdict in which she said if at all there is a case warranting death sentence, it is the December 16, 2012 gangrape-cum-murder case which “shocked the collective conscience of the society”.
People in the packed courtroom, which resembled a scene straight from a Bollywood flick, resorted to impromptu clapping for the judges, the moment Justice Misra sealed the fate of Mukesh (29), Pawan (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31), the perpetrators of the victim.
One of the accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail, while a convicted juvenile, who was termed as the most brutal among the six, has come out of the reformation home after serving a three-year term.
Tears rolled down the cheeks of the victim’s mother, a pensive Asha Devi, and her father Badri Singh, who were present in the courtroom, but they heaved a sigh of relief as Justice Misra concluded reading the operative parts of his 315-page judgement.
Devi said she was happy that justice has finally been done.
Separately, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hailed the judgement and favoured the existence of death penalty in the statute, saying he was satisfied that it was invoked in the rarest of rare instance like the December 16 gangrape case, over which there was a public outcry.
He dubbed the verdict as a “victory of the rule of law.”
Referring to each and every gory detail of the gruesome incident that had sparked nationwide protests, the bench said “It is apt to state here that in the said case, stress was laid on certain aspects, namely, the manner of commission of the murder, the motive for commission of the murder, anti- social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of the crime and personality of the victim of murder.”
Justice Misra, in his judgement, said the instant case revealed “brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature of the crime” which is “evincible from the acts committed by accused”.
The verdict dealt with aspects of the incident like assault on the male friend of the victim with an iron rod, tearing off his clothes, assaulting him and the woman with “hands, kicks and iron rods”.(PTI)
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