Nirbhaya- The delay in Justice but no more acceptance of unjust

KRISHA KAMAL | PRESIDENCY UNIVERSITY, BANGALORE | 9th March 2020

MUKESH & ANR VS STATE FOR NCT OF DELHI & ORS

BRIEF FACTS:

On December 16^th, 2012 at Delhi a medical student got raped by a set of 6 people. The girl was travelling back to her home with her friend. The suspects were in a bus when the girl and her friend took lift from the bus to reach their destination. The girl got raped and assaulted by the men in the moving bus. The convicts also assaulted the boy who was along with the girl. Both boy and girl were thrown out of the bus at the road side and found in a very serious condition. Apparently, after 13 days of treatment the girl passed away at Singapore while undergoing treatment. It was observed that the rape was so brutal that the internal parts and private parts of the deceased body’s were severely injured. All 6 accused got arrested and found guilty for the crime. Among those 6 people one Ram Singh committed suicide and one Juvenile was sent to Juvenile Justice Home. The other 4 was convicted under sections 302, 376(2)(G), 366, 120B, 365, 307, 201, 395, 397 & 412 of Indian Penal Code, 1860. 

JUDGMENT

Hon’ble Supreme Court of India considered this case as ‘rarest of the rare’ and a punishment of death sentence was granted to all 4 convicts by the Delhi High Court in 2014. 

Post this judgment, the convicts were found filing pleas under review petition, curative petition and mercy petition in stages. Each of them were filing these petition one by one and the court observed that the purpose of doing the same is to delay the execution of their punishment.

This case lead to set of amendments and insertion of provisions is the existing laws.

AMENDMENT IN LAWS

Keeping all the facts and laws which were used or misused by any sense during the trial of this case, a set of amendments were done in legislations and precedents were brought in the system to follow.

Following is the list of amendments which were done while dealing with this Case:-

• The Criminal Amendment Act, 2013 which is also known as Anti Rape Act was introduced and amendments were done in IPC by adding new offences such as Stalking, Acid Attacks and Voyeurism.
• A threat to Rape is also a crime now.
• Punishment for rape has been increased from 7 years to 10 years of imprisonment.
• Rape amounting to the death of victim or leaving the victim in a vegetative state has punishment of 20 years of imprisonment.
• The age of juvenile to be tried for a criminal act was changed to 16 years from 18 years.
• In IPC Section 354A, 354B, 354C, 354D, 376(2)(c), 376A & 376D was inserted. These sections deal with sexual harassment, compelling women to remove her clothes, Voyeurism, Stalking, Rape by personnel of armed forces, Rape resulting to death or vegetative state of victim and Gang rape respectively.

The above mentioned changes were brought into existence by constituting a committee called Justice Verma Committee Report. The purpose of establishing this committee was to recommend required amendments to be done in Criminal Law in order to provide for quicker trail and enhanced punishment for criminals accused of committing sexual assault against women. This report includes provisions related to rape, sexual harassment, sexual assault, verbal sexual assault, acid attacks, offences against women at conflict areas, trafficking, child sexual abuse, punishment for crimes against women, medical examination of rape victim, police reforms, reforms in management of case related to crime against women, electoral reforms and educational reforms.