This Article is From May 05, 2017

Crime Of 'A Different World': What Supreme Court Judges Said On Nirbhaya Case Verdict

The Supreme Court today confirmed the death sentence for four convicts in the 2012 December gang-rape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old medical student who came to be called "Nirbhaya" or fearless.

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The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of the the Nirbhaya gangrape case convicts. (File)

The Supreme Court has confirmed the death sentence for four convicts in the gang rape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012. The four men - Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh - had appealed in the top court after the High Court ruled that they should be hanged. The parents of the young woman, who came to be called "Nirbhaya" or fearless, were present in court today when the three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra pronounced verdict.

What the judges have said in the 429-page judgment:

  1. "The present case clearly comes within the category of 'rarest of rare case' where the question of any other punishment is 'unquestionably foreclosed'. If at all there is a case warranting award of death sentence, it is the present case."

  2. "The dying declarations... do withstand close scrutiny and they are consistent with each other."

  3. "It is absolutely obvious that the accused persons had found an object for enjoyment in her and, as is evident, they were obsessed with the singular purpose sans any feeling to ravish her as they liked, treat her as they felt."

  4. "It sounds like a story from a different world where humanity has been treated with irreverence."

  5. "We are compelled to arrive at the singular conclusion that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances now brought on record."

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  7. "The wanton lust, vicious appetite...have driven the appellant to commit a crime which can bring in a 'tsunami' of shock in the mind of the collective, send a chill down the spine of the society."

  8. "After throwing the informant and the deceased victim, the convicts tried to run the bus over them so that there would be no evidence against them. They made all possible efforts in destroying the evidence..." 

  9. "The cruel manner in which the gang-rape was committed in the moving bus... and the coldness with which both the victims were thrown naked in cold wintery night of December, shocks the collective conscience of the society."

  10. "The gruesome offences were committed with highest viciousness. Human lust was allowed to take such a demonic form."

  11. "The evidence brought on record with regard to finger prints is absolutely impeccable"

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