Apex court reserves judgement in Nirbhaya case

The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its verdict on the appeals filed by four death row convicts Mukesh, Pawan, Akshay and Vinay in December 16, 2012 gang-rape and murder case which shook the country's conscience.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra asked the concerned parties to file their written submissions within a week.

During the arguments, senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for Delhi Police, told the bench that these convicts had 'brutalised' the woman and all four deserve nothing less than death penalty.

"The offence committed by them attracts death penalty. They have not given any mitigating circumstances which could warrant reduction of the sentence from death penalty which was awarded to them," he told the bench also comprising Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan.

However, senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae in the matter, told the bench to consider the option of awarding these convicts with life term imprisonment.

Advocates A P Singh and M L Sharma who are representing the convicts argued stating that their family background and young age should be considered. They should not be given death penalty.

All the four convicts have approached the Supreme Court against Delhi High Court's order which had confirmed the death penalty awarded to them by the trial court.

The 23-year-old paramedic was brutally raped by six persons in a moving bus in South Delhi. Following this, she was thrown out of the bus with her male friend on the night of December 16, 2012. All efforts to save her turned futile when she breathed her last in a Singapore hospital on December 29.

On February 3, the apex court bench prima facie agreed with the contention of Ramachandran that the provision of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), relating to sentencing of convicts has not been followed in letter and spirit by the trial court.

It was submitted that section 235 of the CrPC provides that an accused in the event of conviction would be heard on the question of sentencing individually before the trial judge passes the awarding punishment.

The bench then mulled ways to rectify the apparent error and said there are two modes — either the case is remanded back to the trial court to pass a fresh order or the apex court itself hears this aspect of the matter afresh.

The trial court had awarded death penalty to the four convicts. Prime accused Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in his cell in Tihar jail in March 2013 after which proceedings against him were abated.

Earlier, the court had asked the convicts to file their response detailing mitigating circumstances on the issue

of sentencing.

The convicts had approached the apex court against the High Court's on March 13, 2014, verdict which had observed that their offence fell in the rarest of the rare category and had upheld death sentence awarded to them by the trial court.