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2015 Sonepat varsity rape case: HC upholds 20-year jail term of two former students, acquits third
The girl had accused the three final-year law students of OP Jindal Global University, who are from Delhi, of raping her from the time she joined the university in August 2013. The FIR was registered on April 11, 2015
: A Punjab and Haryana high court bench on Friday upheld the 20-year jail term of two former students of Sonepat’s OP Jindal Global University in a 2015 case of gangrape and blackmail of a junior student of the same varsity. The court acquitted the third student of the charges.
A trial court on May 24, 2017 had awarded 20-year jail term each to main accused Hardik Sikri and his friend Karan Chhabra for gangraping and blackmailing the girl student. The third, Vikas Garg, was handed seven-year jail term. They had approached the high court in September 2017.
“The sentence awarded to two of the former students-- Hardik Sikri and Karan Chhabra has been upheld by the high court. The third student, Vikas Garg has been acquitted of charges,” said lawyer Arshdeep Singh Cheema, who appeared along with senior advocate RS Cheema in this case. Detailed judgment is awaited.
The girl had accused the three final-year law students, who are from Delhi, of raping her from the time she joined the university in August 2013. The FIR was registered on April 11, 2015.
“The WhatsApp chats running into pages is so abusive and vulgar that the extracts of the same cannot be explained and put into the judgment and what only can be concluded through the WhatsApp chat is that the prosecutrix (victim) was totally under control and dominance of the accused, Hardik,” the trial court in its judgment had said.
Allegations were that Hardik had circulated her nude pictures among his friends through the free messaging service. He had stored the pictures in a web storage platform and threatened to make them public on the university’s website. As of Sikri, he had forced her to travel with him to Chandigarh to make physical relations with him and this was proved by the electronic data, which the court treated as documentary evidence supporting the girl’s statement to police and the judge.
The trial court judge rejected the defence argument that the girl was a consensual partner as she had admitted to have consumed drugs and had volunteered to purchase beer on their Chandigarh trip.
In November 2017, a high court bench had suspended sentence of all three and granted them bail observing that the woman’s statement stemmed from a “promiscuous attitude and voyeuristic mind”.
The girl had approached the Supreme Court, challenging the high court order and stating that the HC selectively placed reliance on statement she gave to the court during the trial to pass comments on her character. In 2018, the apex court stayed the order and sent all three back to jail. However, subsequently, Vikas Garg was granted bail. Two main convicts are in Jail. ENDS
