In rape and murder case life term for 2 upheld

New Delhi, Sep 02: The Delhi High Court Thursday upheld the life sentence awarded to two men convicted of gang-rape and murder of a woman in 2012, saying the brutality showed the "depraved and evil" mentality of the convicts.

A bench of Justices Mukta Gupta and Anish Dayal said from the nature of injures reported in the post-mortem report, it was evident that the woman put up a brave resistance before the two men, "who overpowered her physically, caused grievous injures on her body, raped and eventually strangled her".

"Thereafter, they attempted to erase the evidence by dumping the body on the roadside and extracted her belongings and put them in different locations. Considering the brutality of the act right in the heart of Delhi which is usually patrolled by police shows the depraved evil mentality of the appellants, who acted with complete impunity with no fear of either the life or consequence of their act and dignity of the woman," the bench said.

The high court was hearing appeals by the two convicts challenging their conviction and sentence awarded by the trial court in the case.

It sentenced the two men, Sikander Soni and Pardeep, to rigorous imprisonment for life, not less than 20 years without remission, for the offence of murder and also awarded life term for gang-raping the woman.

The high court said it was of the view that the "gravity and the depravity" of the crime committed by the appellants was of a serious nature and there was no error in the may 2017 judgement of the trial court.

According to the prosecution, on April 24, 2012, police had received information that a woman's body was found in semi naked condition near a flyover in the Nehru Place area.

The woman had injury marks on her body and the medical reports showed she was gang-raped and murdered, it said.

It said the woman, after being gang-raped in a car, was strangled and the body was dumped on the road.

Both the accused were arrested by police in May, 2012 from different places in Delhi.

The convicts challenged the trial court judgement, saying their conviction would not sustain on the basis of evidence on record since the case of the prosecution was based completely on circumstantial evidence and the chain of such evidence was incomplete.