New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the death sentence of all the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case.
The three judge bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Ashok Bhushan and Banumathi said the case had shaken the collective conscience. Hence, aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors.
Here’s what the judges remarked while delivering the judgment:
* We have taken into consideration the point of view of the Amicus and all the counsel involved. We hold that the evidence submitted is impeccable. Accused were certainly present in the bus and there is no reason or justification to doubt the CCTV footage.
* There has been no gross manipulation on part of the investigative agency. The dying declaration by hand gesture is proven beyond reasonable doubt. Evidence of fingerprints is impeccable and there is no reason to dismiss the analysis of the HC or the trial court.
* There were mitigating factors before us from the accused—like their aged parents, marital status, children and the suffering they will go through, their young age and chances of reformation if death sentence is given.
* A crime of this nature creates a fear psychosis and forms the rarest of the rare case. The crime of this nature is brutal, diabolical and shows violent sexual assault.
* The grotesque behaviour of the accused, the way they forced the victim for anal sex, oral sex is proven by the bite marks. There was insertion of rod in her private parts and intestine was ruptured.
* The way the accused had thrown the victims on the road in the cold winter night and had tried to run the bus over them to remove any trace of the crime shows the intensity.
* The accused had found the victim only to be an object of enjoyment and this episode sounds like a story from another world where the appetite for sex and causing harm has shocked the collective conscience.
* Hence aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors and we uphold the verdict (death sentence) given to all the accused by the High Court.
Judgment delivered by Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Ashok Bhushan. Justice Bhanumathi has agreed with her brother judges but has delivered a separate verdict.
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