SC asks accused to share password

Jindal versity rape case

New Delhi, Feb 7: The Supreme Court on Wednesday made it clear that it would not tolerate the possibility of “continuous blackmail” of the gang rape victim of O.P. Jindal Global University by the convict students, and asked them to share the password of their laptops containing her photos.

A division bench of Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice L.N. Rao asked the accused to share the iCloud account password with the victim. “We are not concerned about the guilty. We are concerned about the present situation. There are pictures of the girl with one of you. It is difficult for us to accept and tolerate continuous blackmail,” Justice Bobde told the counsels appearing for the accused. It added: “You must give access to those photographs. If you have deleted, make sure that they are not released. If not, you have to give the password to the girl.” Senior advocates Shanti Bhushan and Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the accused, told the court that if any password is available, it will be shared.

The three accused — Hardin Sikri, Karan Chhabra and Vikas Garg — were earlier jailed by a trial court for raping a fellow student but the Punjab and Harya High Court had suspended their conviction and sentence in September last year on the grounds that the woman was “promiscuous” and had “casual sexual escapades”. Challenging the High Court’s order of suspension of their sentences, the victim approached the apex court. She alleged that the accused have been blackmailing her as they have her objectioble pictures and expressed apprehension of circulation of those photographs.(IANS)