The Bombay High Court will now hold a final hearing from February 25 on the appeals challenging the death sentence handed out to all the three accused in the much-discussed case involving the ghastly rape and murder of a minor Maratha girl in Kopardi village of Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district in November 2017.
This follows the order passed by Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court Pradeep Nandrajog transferring the appeals challenging the punishment meted out to the accused by the trial court in the Kopardi rape and murder case from the Aurangbad bench of the high court to the principal seat in Mumbai.
Acting on a writ petition filed by the petitioners seeking transfer of the case from Aurangabad bench to the principal High court in Mumbai, the chief justice transferred the Bombay High Court and scheduled the hearing of the “appeals challenging the trial court’s judgement and sentence confirmation in the case” from February 25.
The petitioner had among other things cited that “due to the political limelight the case has got and the past history of threats to the accused and consequently to the lawyers, the Petitioners have not been able to arrange a counsel of their choice to argue their case in the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court”.
In a writ petition challenging the trial court’s order handing out death sentence to her client Santosh Gorakh Bhaval, one of the three persons convicted and sentenced to death in the case, Advocate Vijayalaxmi B Khopade stated that the sessions court had committed a “gross error’ by hastily delivering the judgment and that the trial court had awarded capital punishment to the applicant considering that the case fell under the ambit of “rarest of rare” principle.
Advocate Vijayalaxmi also stated that the trial court’s order entailed “gross miscarriage of justice and a miscarriage of justice which may arise from the conviction of an innocent and that the trial had substituted, in patent error, cogent evidence with strong suspicion and based its reasoning on assumptions while delivering the judgment.
It may be recalled that on November 29, 2017, a fast-track set up under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act had handed out death sentence to all the three convicts in the case. District Sessions Judge (Mrs) Suvarna Keole had awarded capital punishment to all the three convicts in the case — Jitendra alias Pappu Babulal Shinde (26), Santosh Gorkha Bhawal (30) and Nitin Gopinath Bhailume (28).
A 15-year-old victim girl, who belonged to the dominant Maratha community, was brutally raped between 7.35 pm and 8.15 pm July 13, 2016 and later throttled to death. The victim girl was on her way to bring spice from her grandfather house at that time.
All the three accused in the case are Dalits. The incident, it may be recalled, had sparked widespread protests in the state, with various political parties and Maratha organisations rooting for capital punishment to the accused.
The 11-month-long trial in Ahmednagar minor girl rape and murder case had generated considerable interest among the people across the state.
The fast-track court had on November 9 2016 framed charges against three accused --- Jitendra Shinde, Santosh Bhawal and Nitin Bhailume --under various sections of POSCO Act and IPC for allegedly perpetrating a sexual assault on the victim girl and strangulating her.
The Prosecution’s case was that the prime accused Jitendra Shinde allegedly raped and murdered the girl, while two other accused Bhawal and Bhailume had “conspired” with Shinde in the heinous crime.
During the trial which began on December 20, 2016, the Prosecution examined 31 witnesses, while defence lawyer defence lawyer Vijayalaxmi Khopade – representing one of the three accused Bhawal in the case – examined one witness.
There were no eyewitnesses in the case and that the entire case was based on “circumstantial evidence”, omissions and commissions made by the accused and forensic evidence”.
Nikam, it may be recalled, had -- during his final arguments in the case --adduced 24 pieces of circumstantial evidence built up the chain of events leading to the rape of the “homicidal death” of the victim girl who was studying in the ninth standard.
According to Nikam, the medical evidence helped the Prosecution nail the prime accused in the case.
“The dental imprints found on both the breasts of the victim girl matched with that of the accused number one (Jitendra Shinde).
The blood group of the victim girl was “A”, while blood group of Shinde is Rs O’. The blood (group A) found on Shinde’s shirt matched that of the victim girl,” Nikam had said.