The Delhi High Court on Monday rejected the bail petition of Uber cab driver Shiv Kumar Yadav but admitted the appeal challenging his conviction and sentence handed down by a trial court. He was awarded imprisonment for raping a 25-year-old woman executive in his taxi in 2014.
The Bench of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Mukta Gupta were told by Yadav’s counsel that the sentence awarded to his client should be suspended and he should be granted bail during the pendency of appeal.
The trial court had on November 3 last year awarded the sentence to 33-year-old Yadav observing that his acts were “against society” and should be dealt with an “iron hand”. His lawyer claimed there were improvements in the woman’s testimonies which was recorded by the police and the one recorded before a magistrate.
Besides the jail term, the trial court had also imposed a fine of Rs21,000 on Yadav who was convicted for the offences under Sections 376(2)(m) (while committing rape causes grievous bodily harm or disfigures or endangers life of a woman), 366 (abducting with an intent to compel her for marriage), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 323 (causing hurt) of IPC.
The incident had taken place on the night of December 5, 2014 when the victim, a finance executive working in Gurgaon, was heading back to her house at Inderlok in Central Delhi.
Yadav was arrested on December 7, 2014 from Mathura and was in judicial custody since then.
The woman had told the trial court that on the day of the incident, after finishing her office work she had gone to Gurgaon for a party with friends and had booked an Uber cab for returning to her house in Inderlok.