On a foggy morning of December 16, 2012 when India woke up to Nirbhaya’s heart-rending rape-and-murder story, the collective conscience of a nation immune to brutality against women was shaken like never before. Tens of thousands of men and women led by outraged youth and civil right activists poured into the streets of the national Capital and elsewhere in the country, crying for justice and demanding tougher laws to deal with perpetrators of such ghastly crime.
Four years down the line, Nirbhaya has just remained a tragic memory. Every day, more and more Nirbhayas keep falling preys to human “predators” who continue to stalk dark streets and lonely alleys despite tall claims of better patrolling and deterrent laws.
And why notIJ After all, Nirbhaya’s killers are still alive, thanks to India’s turtle-paced judicial system and snail-like prosecution setup. Despite clamour for a speedy justice, the perpetrators have been able to exploit legal loopholes to drag the case for years. As the Government and the judiciary trade charges over paucity of judges — a prime reason for pendency and delay in disposal of cases — the denial of speedy justice in such brutal cases are defeating the very purpose for which “tougher’ laws have been enacted.
The authorities will argue that by Indian standard, the case has proceeded swiftly since the Supreme Court was in the final stages of hearing the appeals filed by the convicts against death sentence granted by trail court and high court. The SC has heard both sides and was close to completing arguments in the case. But this may not satisfy all those who had braced police lathi-charge and water cannons, and held candlelight marches across different parts of the country with chants “We want justice…hang the killers of Nirbhaya.”
By all accounts, it was such a brutal crime that exception should have been made to deliver speedy justice. The judiciary and prosecution should have tried to send a message to the society that when it came to such heinous crime against women, nothing will come in the way of sending the perpetrators to the gallows. Failure to do so, for whatever reasons, will not only embolden such “predators” but also dampen the spirit of multitude which time
and against tries to raise its voice for justice.
The delay is particularly galling because the police had arrested four perpetrators — bus driver Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta — within four days of the crime. The fifth accused, a juvenile, was arrested on December 21.
The sixth accused Akshay was arrested a day later from Bihar’s Aurangabad district.
As a tear-filled nation prayed for Nirbhaya’s recovery, she was flown to Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital by the Government. The brave girl battled for life for three more days and then breathed her last on December 29.
The police acted swiftly and on January 3 filed charge-sheet against five adult accused for offences including murder, gang rape, attempt to murder, kidnapping, unnatural offences and dacoity etc. The court took cognizance of the charge sheet on January 5 and started in-camera proceedings two days later. The trial court framed charges against five adult accused on February 2 and Juvenile Justice Board did the same against the minor three weeks later.
As the case proceeded, Ram Singh committed suicide in Tihar Jail in March. On September 10, the Court convicted Mukesh, Vinay, Akshay, Pawan, and Mukesh and awarded them death sentence two days later.
The case moved to High Court and on September 23 Delhi High Court started day-to-day hearing of the convicts’ death sentence reference sent to it by the trial court. Six months later, on March 13, 2014 to be specific, the HC upheld the death awarded to the four convicts. Since then it has been two-and-half years and Nirbhaya’s parents and millions of people are waiting for the closure of the case. Justice may finally prevail, but the delay makes a fresh case for the need to shake up judicial and prosecution systems to deal with such heinous cases of crime.