SC To Consider Listing Plea For Review Of Verdict Acquitting 3 In Chhawla Gang-Rape, Murder
The three men had been accused of the crime of abducting the 19-year-old woman, then gang-raping and brutally killing her, in February 2012.
NEW DELHI: A Supreme Court bench on Thursday said it will decide on listing for hearing of a plea that seeks review of its November 7 verdict which acquitted three death row convicts charged with the gang-rape and killing of a 19-year-old girl kidnapped from Delhi's Chhawla area in 2012.
The SC bench comprises Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala. They had taken note of a lawyer's submissions that the hearing of a review plea is listed.
The lawyer had said that it is an extremely important case, which has shaken the confidence of the public and needed to be listed 'urgently.'
The Chief Justice is reported to have said, "I will take a call after going through it".
The apex court had, on November 7, acquitted the three convicted men by setting aside the August 26, 2014 order of the Delhi High Court, which had upheld the trial court's verdict of a death sentence.
Recently, several pleas seeking review of the November 7 verdict of the apex court have been filed.
The victim's father has also moved the Supreme Court through lawyer Rohit Dandriyal, seeking review of the verdict which had acquitted the convicts of the charges leveled against them.
On November 7, the top court had acquitted the three convicts by saying that punishment of an accused on the basis of moral conviction or on suspicion alone is not permitted by the law.
Significantly, the observation had been made by it while noting that society in general and the family of the victim in particular may be caused a kind of agony and frustration if the accused involved in the heinous crime go unpunished or if they are acquitted.
It, however, noted that the prosecution had failed to provide leading, cogent, clinching and clear evidence against the accused. Other evidence including DNA profiling and call detail records (CDRs) were not adequate, the bench remarked, saying that the trial court also acted as a 'passive umpire' in the case.
The three men had been accused of the crime of abducting the 19-year-old woman, then gang-raping and brutally killing her, in February 2012.
According to the prosecution the woman, belonging to Uttarakhand, worked in Gurgaon's Cyber City area. She had almost reached home after returning from her workplace, when the three men abducted her in a car. When she didn't return home, her parents lodged a missing person report. The prosecution added that the woman's mutilated and decomposing body was found, three days after she was abducted, in a village in Rewari, Haryana.
Multiple injuries were found by the police on the woman's body. Further investigation and autopsy revealed that she was not only raped but was attacked with car tools, glass bottles, metal objects, and other weapons.
The three men allegedly involved in the crime were arrested by the police and it was claimed that one of them took revenge on the woman after she spurned his advances.
A trial court in 2014 termed the case "rarest of rare", awarding death penalty to the three accused.
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