Bombay High Court Upholds Death Penalty Of Mumbai's Shakti Mills Gang-Rape Convicts

The Bombay High Court has upheld the death penalty of three convicts in the 2013 Shakti Mill gang-rape case. The Bombay HC on Monday ruled that section 376(E) of the Indian Penal Code under which repeat offenders in rape cases can be awarded life imprisonment or death penalty is constitutionally valid and is applicable in the case.

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A division bench of Justices B P Dharmadhikari and Revati Mohite Dere made the ruling while dismissing the petitions filed by three convicts in the Shakti Mill gang rape case challenging Constitutional validity of the legal provisions under which they were sentenced to death in 2014.

The amendment was made after the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi in 2012.

"We are of the opinion that section 376(E) of the IPC is not ultra vires to the Constitution and hence need not be quashed in the present case," the court said.

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The three convicts ¡ª Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali, and Mohammed Salim Ansari were sentenced to death after they were arrested for sexually assaulting a photojournalist in 2013 at the deserted Shakti Mills compound, near Mahalaxmi in South Mumbai, with a male colleague on an assignment.

BCCL

The five accused in the case, including two juvenile, allegedly tied up the male colleague and took turns raping the photojournalist while holding a broken beer bottle to her neck to keep her from shouting for help.

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After the victim approached the police and it made headlines, another girl, a 19-year-old telephone operator also came forward and alleged that she was gang-raped at the Shakti Mills compound by five men earlier that year. Three of the men involved were also accused in the photojournalist's case.

The trio was sentenced to death for their involvement in the two cases.