In a significant decision, the Bombay High Court on Thursday commuted to life imprisonment the death penalty awarded to the three accused in the Shakti Mills gang-rape cases.
The three convicts -- Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali alias Kasim Hafiz Shaikh and Salim Ansar -- will undergo life sentence for the remainder of their natural life.
They were awarded capital punishment for the gang-rape of a 22-year-old photo-journalist and a 19-year-old telephone operator in the Shakti Mills compound near the Mahalaxmi Race Course.
While the photo-journalist was sexually assaulted on August 22, 2013, the telephone operator was raped by the same group of men in July in the same year.
They were convicted and sentenced to death on March 20, 2014 by the Mumbai Sessions Court.
They were held guilty under the amended 376 E of the Indian Penal Code, which was brought in after the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape-cum-murder case of Delhi.
Senior counsel Yug Chaudhry, who represented the accused, had argued that the death sentence awarded to them was wrong in law since there existed an “enormous difference between the harm caused” by them and “the punishment” meted out to them.
"The Shakti Mill gang-rape case has shocked the conscience of society. A rape victim suffers not just physically but mentally as well. It is a violation of human rights. But only public outcry cannot be taken into account. A death sentence is only an exception. Judgment should not be guided by public outcry,” the bench said.
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