By PTI
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today refused to interfere with its main verdict in the sensational December 16, 2012 gangrape-and-murder of a 23-year-old woman, in which it had said that such "brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature" of a crime could create a "tsunami of shock" and destroy a civilised society.
The Supreme Court today delivered its much-awaited decision on the review petitions of the death row convicts -- Mukesh (31), Pawan Gupta (24) and Vinay Sharma (25) -- who had approached it against its judgement and findings on May 5 last year.
In the main judgement, the apex court had observed that the accused had found the woman as "an object for enjoyment" and "ravish her as they liked, treat her as they felt" to get "gross sadistic and beastly instinctual pleasure", and such acts were "bound to shock the collective conscience".
The three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, while deciding the appeals of the convicts against the Delhi High Court verdict, had referred to each and every gory detail of the gruesome incident that had sparked nationwide protests.
"It is apt to state here that in the said case, stress was laid on certain aspects, namely, the manner of commission of the murder, the motive for commission of the murder, anti- social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of the crime and personality of the victim of murder.
" The paramedic student was gangraped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in South Delhi by a gang of six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out naked.
She succumbed to her injuries on December 29 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
In his judgement, Justice Misra, which he had written for himself and Justice Ashok Bhushan, had said the case revealed "brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature of the crime" which is "evincible from the acts committed by accused".
The "loathsome bestiality of passion ruled the mindset of the appellants (convicts) to commit a crime which can summon with immediacy 'tsunami' of shock in the mind of the collective and destroy the civilised marrows of the milieu in entirety," it had said.
Justice R Banumathi had written a separate and concurring verdict in which she said if at all there is a case warranting death sentence, it is the December 16, 2012 gangrape-cum-murder case which "shocked the collective conscience of the society".
The verdict had dealt with aspects of the incident like assault on the male friend of the victim with an iron rod, tearing off of his clothes, assaulting him and the woman with "hands, kicks and iron rods".
It had said the medical records had demonstrated that the entire intestine of the victim was "perforated and splayed open due to the repeated insertion of the rod and hands and the appellants had pulled out the internal organs of the prosecutrix in the most savage and inhuman manner that caused grave injuries which ultimately annihilated her life.
" The court had also referred to bite marks on the victim's body parts, including private ones and said "these acts itself demonstrate the mental perversion and inconceivable brutality as caused by the appellants".
It sounded like a story from a "different world where humanity has been treated with irreverence", it had said, adding "the appetite for sex, the hunger for violence, the position of the empowered and the attitude of perversity, to say the least, are bound to shock the collective conscience which knows not what to do".
Justice R Banumathi, in her separate verdict, had said the rising crimes against the woman was an "area of concern" as "over the past few decades, legal advancements and policy reforms have done much to protect women from all sources of violence and also to sensitise the public on the issue of protection of women and gender justice.
Still, the crimes against women are on the increase. " She had said that right from childhood years, children ought to be sensitised to respect women. A child should be taught to respect women in the society in the same way as he is taught to respect men. Gender equality should be made a part of the school curriculum. The fervent plea of the accused to discredit the veracity of three dying declarations of the victim was also trashed by the bench which had said that they "do withstand close scrutiny and they are consistent with each other.
" It had also appreciated the modern and scientific methods like DNA profiling and had said it has proved "to the hilt the presence of accused in the bus and their involvement in the crime".
