Delhi HC sentences 3 men to jail till death for raping minor

A bench of justices Mukta Gupta and Mini Pushkarna, which upheld a trial court judgment of October 16, 2020, said imprisonment for the remainder of their lives would be an appropriate sentence given the facts of the case.

Noting that the gang-rape and murder of a three-year-old girl in Ramesh Nagar in 2012 was done in the most “brutal and diabolic manner”, the Delhi high court on Tuesday awarded life imprisonment (for the remainder of their natural lives) to three persons convicted of the crime.

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While upholding the trial court judgment of October 16, 2020, a bench of justices Mukta Gupta and Mini Pushkarna said imprisonment for the remainder of their lives would be an appropriate sentence given the facts of the case.

Observing that the death sentence has not been awarded by the trial court, the bench said, “...the three appellants have been convicted of the gang rape and murder of a minor aged 3 years, thereby brutally mutilating her private parts and smothering her. In the present case, death sentence has not been awarded by the trial court. However, the sentence of life which would ordinarily be up to fourteen years after remissions would be highly inadequate, unjust and unfair to the victim.”

The court said though the trial court could not have qualified the life imprisonment awarded by it as “the remainder of the natural life of the convicts”, the high court said it can award the same sentence on consideration of facts of the case.

According to the prosecution, police received information on January 6, 2012, about the body of a girl, aged about 3-4 years, being found in a drain in Ramesh Nagar by a municipal employee who was cleaning the drain.The autopsy showed that the child was raped and then smothered to death. Police investigation revealed that a man named Jamahir, who was known to the child’s family, had taken her with her parents’ consent to an under-construction building where he, along with his two friends -- Birbal and Raj Kumar -- raped and murdered her. All three were arrested and the trial court later awarded them life imprisonment for the crime, which the convicts appealed before the high court.