‘Don’t go soft on rapists,’ apex court tells lower courts

The Supreme Court has held that a compromise between a rapist and a victim cannot be a ground for awarding lesser punishment. It also cautioned the high courts and lower courts from taking a softer view and reducing the sentence in case of compromise. It said that it would not be safe to reduce sentence of a rape convict or accused in exercise of their discretionary powers under the IPC, merely because the victim has settled the matter. A three-judge bench was hearing a case of a person sentenced to 10 years on gangrape charge in Haryana.

The victim said she has four children and did not want the said case to be pursued. She said in view of the compromise entered into by her with the accused and in order to maintain dignity in her matrimonial life, she has no objection if the sentence be reduced to the period already undergone.

Counsel for the convicts had shown the settlement arrived at between convicts and victim, in the form of an affidavit, based on which he prayed for the reduction of sentence to the period already undergone. Haryana government counsel contended in view of the statutory provision,
as it stood, in the absence of adequate and special reasons and the offence being a gang rape, the same cannot be reduced to the period already undergone because the victim has entered into a settlement.