Nirbhaya Rape Case Verdict LIVE: Will Rapists be Spared the Noose? Supreme Court to Decide Today

Earlier this year, she had said that the family members of rape victims should be allowed to witness judicial proceedings in the Supreme Court, which otherwise requires necessary documentation by lawyers to allow them entry inside the court room.

How an Incident Changed Nirbhaya's Mother | An incident changed a barely literate woman from a small Uttar Pradesh village to a champion of women's rights. Asha Devi, Nirbhaya's mother, who didn't even know what it feels like when suddenly mikes are thrust in your face, has to deal with it every now and then after the brutal rape of her daughter repulsed and jolted the nation. “I never imagined my child would be taken away from me like this,” a Times of India report quoted her as saying. “Right after the incident when my mouth would be dry, when I felt I had no voice, the media came to talk to me. I opened my mouth and the words just tumbled out. Now, it is no longer so difficult. I speak my mind no matter who is on the stage.’’ Nirbhaya’s parents now run the "Nirbhaya Jyoti Trust", to provide pro bono legal advice and litigation support to needy women victims of violent crimes.

A News18 Creative, published last year, shows the unchanged and changed situations in India after the December 16 gangrape incident of Nirbhaya in South Delhi.

#JusticeForNirbhaya As the SC upholds death sentence for Nirbhaya's rapists, a look at what has changed & what hasn't in the last few years pic.twitter.com/ndc7KL9pBL

— News18 (@CNNnews18) May 5, 2017

Here is a look at some of the legal options still available for the four men on death row.

When the Brutal Rape and Murder of Nirbhaya Shook the 'Collective Conscience of the Nation' | Last year, when Supreme Court was hearing the death sentence for all the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, the courtroom was jam-packed with lawyers, anxious observer and journalists till the three judges entered at 2.02 pm, a similar scene was witness during Yakub Memon verdict. Justice Dipak Misra, who led the bench, straightaway headed to read out parts from the verdict penned down by him and Justice Bhushan. He said that investigation was cautious and long. Delhi Police counsel Siddharth Luthra had submitted that the investigation was flawless, whereas the counsel for the convicts had tried to prove some biases in the process. The grotesque behaviour of the convicts, the way they forced the victim for anal sex and oral sex was proven by the bite marks. There was an insertion of an iron rod in the victim’s private parts and her intestine was ruptured.The way the convicts had thrown the victims on the road in the cold winter night and had tried to run the bus her and her friend to remove any trace of the crime also worked against them. Justice Misra said that this felt like a story from another world where 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. The court observed that the case had shaken the collective conscience of the nation. Hence, aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors and the verdict of death sentence to all the convicts by the Delhi High court was upheld by the Supreme Court of India.

Crime Against Women in Delhi 5 Yrs After Nirbhaya Incident | According to a report in The Times of India, incidents of crime against women had slightly decreased in 2017, five years after 23-year-old paramedic student was raped and brutalised in a moving bus in south Delhi. The chilling December 16 event was a turning point for law enforcement in the capital. Delhi Police underwent an overhaul at the grass-roots level, and the effort to make the city safer for women is paying off. In 2017, 1,968 cases of rape and 3,146 cases of molestation were lodged till November 30 against 1,992 rape cases in the same period last year (2,155 in the whole year) and 3,914 of molestation (4,165). The slide in the figures has come despite mandatory, free and easy registration of cases, so much so that police file FIRs even for complaints received on email. Till date (December 2017), 2,174 people have been arrested on rape charges and 3,373 people for molestation. 

Nearly six years after the henious rape and brutal murder of 23-year-old paramedic student Nirbhaya in New Delhi, little seems to have changed on the ground for women in India with the country being ranked the most dangerous nation for women. According to a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey, factors like sexual violence, human trafficking for domestic work and forced labour, forced marriage, sexual slavery and others were considered before ranking the countries. Government data showed that reported cases of crime against women in India rose by 83 per cent between 2007 and 2016, when four cases of rape were reported every hour, Reuters reported.

The Supreme Court bench headed by CJI Dipak Misra will on July 9 pronounce its judgment on the review petition filed by the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape-murder case.

Finally, Luthra submitted that the initial arrest was made at Delhi and not Karoli, Rajasthan as contended by Sharma and that within 24 hours of the arrest, Mukesh had been produced before a magistrate. The Investigating Officer, in the preliminary inquiry, had recorded two sets of articles obtained from two places which were confirmed, firstly, by disclosure and subsequently, under recovery for the purpose of section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872. In addition, Sharma had brought to the attention of the bench the possibility of tampering at the end of the police with the parcel dispatched to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, CBI. Chief Justice Misra assured the Advocate that the issue shall be addressed.

In respect of the argument that the disclosure statement dated December 18, 2012 was illegally obtained under threat and coercion, Luthra cited the Supreme Court judgment in Pooran Mal v. Director of Inspection (Investigation) of Income Tax [(1974) 1 SCC 345] in so far as it was held therein that even irregularly procured evidence is admissible if the same is deemed relevant. In respect of the police diary containing dying declaration of the victim dated December 21, 2012 recorded by the Investigating Officer wherein the name of Mukesh was not mentioned, the Senior Advocate submitted that by virtue of section 172 of the CrPC, the same cannot be relied upon.

SC Had Allowed Review Petitions to Be Constituted on Behalf of 3 Convicts in Nirbhaya Case | The apex court had also allowed review petitions to be instituted on behalf of the remaining three convicts, namely, Pawan Kumar Gupta, Akshay Kumar Singh and Vinay Sharma. Subsequently, on December 12, 2017, SPP Siddharth Luthra had submitted that the issues raised by advocate Sharma, have already been considered by the trial court, affirmed by the Delhi High Court and finally by the apex court sitting as a court of appeal. With regard to allegations of custodial torture, Luthra argued that Mukesh was held in judicial custody and not in the custody of the Investigating Officer. Further, no mention of any torture had been made during the course of the trial. Sharma had also contended that the police had forcibly procured vakalatnamah from the present petitioner in violation of Article 22 of the Constitution. Luthra submitted that the trial court records in the matter are replete with instances of serious misconduct and “behaviour unbecoming of a lawyer” and hence, the court was compelled to appoint an amicus curiae.

Further, advocate M L Sharma referred to the mobile phone recovered from the person of Mukesh Kumar from which a call was made at 8:54 PM on the night of the crime to co-accused Ram Singh (since deceased), emphasising that the testimony of neither the prosecutrix nor the informant mentions boarding of the bus wherein the crime is alleged to be committed by Mukesh thereafter. Lastly, the driver’s license recovered from Mukesh pertains to two-wheeler vehicles and not heavy vehicles like the bus which Mukesh is alleged to have driven during the commission of the crime.

What  Points Did Accused Mukesh Kumar's Lawyer Present in Front of Supreme Court | The review petition filed on behalf of convict Mukesh Kumar (one of the accused), challenged the impugned judgment on the ground that the aforesaid convict is falsely implicated and that he was not present at the crime scene at the time of the unfortunate incident on 16th December 2012. Advocate M L Sharma, appearing for Mukesh Kumar, requested the bench to reconsider the imposition of capital punishment on his client, contending, “The disclosure statements for the purpose of section 21 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 are tainted with custodial torture in respect of which a writ petition was also filed by Mukesh before the Delhi High Court. There are a plethora of judgements since Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration [1980 SCR (2) 557] whereunder the admissibility of evidence obtained through illegal means is discussed.” He also relied on the special police diary containing dying declaration dated 21st December, 2012 of the victim recorded by the Investigating Officer wherein the name of Mukesh does not appear.

On September 13, 2013, the Additional Sessions Judge, Saket District Court Complex, finding the accused guilty under, inter alia, sections 365-366, 376(2)(g), 377, 302 and 307 of the IPC read with its section 120 B had ordered them to be hanged till death. The said order was upheld by the Delhi High Court in appeal by judgment dated March 13, 2014 and thereafter by the Supreme Court. On November 13 last year, A Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan had heard the review petition against the judgment dated May 5, 2017 of the court upholding the death sentence awarded by the Delhi High Court in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case.

“The accused may not be hardened criminals; but the cruel manner in which the gang-rape was committed in the moving bus; iron rods were inserted in the private parts of the victim; and the coldness with which both the victims were thrown naked in cold wintery night of December, shocks the collective conscience of the society. The present case clearly comes within the category of ‘rarest of rare case’ where the question of any other punishment is ‘unquestionably foreclosed’. If at all there is a case warranting award of death sentence, it is the present case," Live Law said quoting the apex court.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce the judgment on the review pleas of the death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case. The Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices R Banumati and Ashok Bhushan will deliver the judgment this afternoon.  Sitting in appeal, the Supreme Court had in May, 2017 refused to attach any weight to the defence objections of delay in filing of FIR, non-mentioning of assailants’ names in the FIR, credibility of the testimony of the informant or the alleged tampering of the CCTV footage. The submission regarding non-compliance with the provisions of sections 235(2) and 354(3) of Cr. P. C. also had not influenced the judgment. According to Live Law, the top court had also declined to take into consideration mitigating factors such as young age, poor and rural background, family circumstances, lack of criminal antecedents and good conduct in prison of the convicts to commute the sentence to life imprisonment.