A Delhi high court bench headed by Justice Reva Khetrapal will on Monday hear the trial court’s reference for confirmation of the death penalty awarded by it to four men in the December 16 gangrape-cum-murder case.
While awarding capital punishment to Mukesh, 26, Akshay Thakur, 28, Pawan Gupta, 19, and Vinay Sharma, 20, on September 13 additional sessions judge Yogesh Khanna had referred the case to the high court for confirmation of the sentence.
The trial court has to refer each death penalty case to the high court for confirmation of the punishment.
The four convicts were awarded death sentence in the brutal gangrape case by the fast-track court which said it fell in the rarest of rare category as the crime was committed against a 23-year-old girl in a “beastly” and “hair-raising” manner.
“Accordingly, the convicts be hanged by neck till they are dead,” the trial court had said after noting that the inhuman and ghastly acts of the convicts shocked the collective conscience of the nation and deserves exemplary punishment.
Key accused Ram Singh, 34, was found dead in his cell in Tihar Jail here in March and proceedings against him were abated. The juvenile accused was on August 31 convicted and sentenced to a maximum of three years in a reformation home.
On the night of December 16 last year, the paramedic student was gangraped in a moving bus in south Delhi after the convicts lured her and her 28-year-old male friend, who was also assaulted, on board the vehicle, which was later found to be plying illegally on the national capital’s roads.
The victim’s friend, a software engineer, suffered fractures in his limbs.
The girl succumbed to injuries on December 29, 2012 in a Singapore hospital.