Courts cannot turn a blind eye to gruesome crimes against women which require exemplary punishment, a Delhi court has held while sentencing six persons to upto 12 years for gang raping a woman in a Gramin Sewa vehicle nearly four years back.
The court observed that a young unmarried woman will not put her reputation in peril by alleging falsely about forcible sexual assault.
“The increasing trend of crimes against women can be arrested only once society realises that any form of deviance against women would not be tolerated and more so in extreme cases of brutality such as the present one.
“Hence the criminal justice system must instill confidence in the minds of people, especially women,” Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain said in a 55-page order.
“These are the times when gruesome crimes against women have become rampant and courts cannot turn a blind eye to the need to send a strong deterrent message to the perpetrators of such crimes. Such offences require exemplary punishment,” the court said.
It handed down 12 years jail term to 31-year-old Vicky for the offences of gangrape, kidnapping and unnatural offences and sent five other convicts, including a Gramin Sewa driver, to 10 years in jail for gangraping the victim.
According to the prosecution, a complaint was lodged on May 19, 2012 that the woman was raped by six persons in a vehicle near Kalindi Kunj in south-east Delhi.
The court said that the role of a judge is to cull out true facts from the evidence led before him and “ensure that guilty does not go scotfree and innocent’s life and liberty is not jeopardised.”
It relied on victim’s testimony and rejected contention of defence counsel that there were contradictions in her evidence saying, “A person with so much trauma cannot be expected to remember every scene and depose in a parrot-like manner.”
Opposing any leniency towards the convicts, Prosecutor Mohd Iqrar had argued that the offences committed by them were serious and they deserved stringent punishment.
The police said accused Vicky, Lucky, Yasin and Satyajeet had abducted the woman and took her to an isolated place where these four along with Uma Shanker and Amit gangraped her.
Vicky also committed unnatural sex with her and threatened to kill her, it said.
All the accused had denied the allegations and claimed they were falsely implicated.
“The important thing that the court has to bear in mind is that what is lost by a rape victim is face. The victim loses value as a person. Ours is a conservative society, therefore, a woman and more so a young unmarried woman will not put her reputation in peril by alleging falsely about forcible sexual assault,” it said. .
( Source – PTI )
