Sonepat varsity rape case: HC upholds 20-yr jail term for 2 convicts

A Punjab and Haryana high court bench on Friday upheld the 20-year jail term given to two former students of Jindal Global University in Sonepat and acquitted the third student in a 2015 gang-rape and blackmail case of a junior student of the same varsity

A Punjab and Haryana high court bench on Friday upheld the 20-year jail term given to two former students of Jindal Global University in Sonepat and acquitted the third student in a 2015 gang-rape and blackmail case of a junior student of the same varsity.

On May 24, 2017, a trial court had awarded 20-year jail terms to main accused Hardik Sikri and his friend Karan Chhabra for gang-raping and blackmailing the survivor.

On May 24, 2017, a trial court had awarded 20-year jail terms to main accused Hardik Sikri and his friend Karan Chhabra for gang-raping and blackmailing the survivor. The third, Vikas Garg, was handed a seven-year jail term, and has been acquitted now. The three 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 on behalf of Garg.

The FIR against the three was filed on April 11, 2015, based on a complaint from the survivor. She accused the three accused, all residents of Delhi, of raping her multiple times since she joined the university in August 2013.

Pronouncing its judgment against the three accused, the trial court had said: “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 survivor had alleged that Sikri had circulated nude pictures of her among his friends and had stored the pictures on a cloud server. He had threatened to post the pictures on the university’s website, the complaint said. Futher, it was alleged that Sikri had forced the survivor to travel with him to Chandigarh. The electronic data submitted in court to back this allegation was treated by the presiding bench as documentary evidence.

The trial court judg jhad rejected the defence argument that the girl was Sikri’s 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 the sentences of all three accused and granted them bail observing that the woman’s statement stemmed from a “promiscuous attitude and voyeuristic mind”.

The survivor had then approached the Supreme Court stating that the HC selectively placed reliance on statements 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 accused back to jail. Subsequently, Garg was granted bail but Sikri and Chhabra remain in prison.