Upholding the death sentence to convicts in the December 2012 gang-rape, the Delhi High Court spared no adjectives to denounce the act of the perpetrators. A division bench of Justices Reva Khetrapal and Pratibha Rani said the manner in which the crime was committed was demonstrative of ‘exceptional licentiousness’ and ‘perversion of a superlative degree’. The court, while justifying the death sentence, maintained that integrity of life, the greatest gift bestowed upon mankind, could not be allowed to be frittered away by ‘flagitious criminality’.
In her observation, Justice Khetrapal termed the murder case as ‘extremely fiendish’ and ‘unparalleled in the history of criminal jurisprudence’. Dismissing all the appeals made by the convicts against the trial court’s verdict, she affirmed that the offences were ‘completely revolting’ and committed in an awfully ‘demoniac, barbaric and nefarious manner.’ Emphasising on the dire need of imposing the severest punishment on the four convicts, Khetrapal went on to state, “Exemplary punishment is, therefore, the need of the hour, for, if this is not the rarest of rare cases there is likely to be none.”
On the intention behind the barbaric crime committed on the 23-year-old paramedical student, she observed, “What makes matters worse is that debauchery, avarice, profligacy and viciousness appear to be the only impelling forces behind the commission of the crime.”
On the other hand, Justice Pratibha Rani in her observations took to poetry while explaining the gruesome act and the vulnerability of a woman due to her ‘delicate physique’. “These characteristics of a woman have been depicted by great Hindi Poet Jaishankar Prasad in his epic Kamayani,” the judgement read. She further went on to state, “Perhaps the convicts were familiar with the insensitive attitude of this metro city which also finds reflection in the couplet: ‘lagta hain sheher mein aaye ho naye, Ruk gaye ho raah, hadsa dekh kar.’”