The gallows for 2012 Delhi gang rape convicts

True to expectation, a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Dipak Mishra has upheld the death penalty for four persons convicted by the Delhi High Court in the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. The gruesome crime had caused nationwide outrage with thousands of youth taking to the streets in disgust and horror. A fifth convict, Ram Singh, had committed suicide in the jail in 2013 and a sixth, who was less than 18 years of age and hence subject to the juvenile law, was freed in 2015 after serving a three-year sentence in a remand home. The three-judge bench that heard the case contended that while capital punishment is given only in the rarest of rare cases, this was such a case considering that the 23-year-old girl given the pseudonym Nirbhaya (the fearless one) had her intestines shattered with an iron rod, her clothes torn and a bestial sexual assault committed on her in a gang rape. "She was reduced to an object for their gross sadistic pleasures. They played with her dignity in a devilish manner," the court said. Rarely is the grant of capital punishment met with applause in the court room but in this case this was so. Those who will face the gallows are Mukesh (29), Pawan (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31). It was the outrage over Nirbhaya’s gruesome death after the assault and rape by six persons in a moving bus in south Delhi that in 2013, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013 or the Anti-Rape Bill, which was later called the Nirbhaya Act, came into existence. The new law mandated death penalty under Section 376A of the Indian Penal Code. The victim struggled for 13 days in a Singapore hospital before succumbing to her injuries. Under Section 376A, whoever commits a rape, which leads to the death of the victim or causes her to be in a “persistent vegetative state,” shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a minimum term of 20 years which may extend to life or with death. There were questions raised in public as to why the juvenile who was an equal partner in the crime should be freed after a mere three years in a remand home but nothing came of suggestions to amend the law retrospectively to mete out deterrent punishment to him.

Under the law, the four death row convicts can now file review petition challenging the judgment. In that event, the bench hearing the review petition must be larger than the bench that gave the death penalty. In case they fail to get reprieve, they can file for curative petition. If that fails the only recourse they have is to file for presidential mercy petition. Under article 72 of the Constitution, the President can grant pardon, and suspend, remit or commute a sentence of death. However, the president does not exercise this power on this own — he has to act on the advice of the council of ministers. But for all practical purposes it is the end of the road for the convicts.