The Supreme Court’s amicus curiae in the Nirbhaya gang rape case, Raju Ramachandran, has asked the apex court to set aside the death penalty awarded to the accused.
In his written submissions, the senior advocate listed six fundamental errors committed by the trial court while awarding death sentences, including not taking the mitigating circumstances of the accused persons into consideration and not hearing them in person on their punishment.
Not given enough timeMr. Ramachandran submitted that the trial court failed to put any of the accused to notice on the imposition of the death sentence and they were not given sufficient time to reflect on the question of death penalty.
The trial court had not made a genuine effort to elicit the circumstances of the accused that would have had a bearing on the sentence. The written submissions showed that reasons for the imposition of death penalty on each of the accused were not given separately and a ‘one-penalty-fits-all’ order was imposed.
“In other words, there was no individualised or personalised hearing or application of mind on the question of sentence. Besides, the submissions said, the trial court did not convey to the accused the range of mitigating factors that they could bring up if they faced the prospect of death penalty.
Brutal gang rapeThe victim, a 23-year-old paramedic, was brutally gang-raped by six persons in a moving bus in South Delhi and thrown out of the vehicle with her male friend on the night of December 16, 2012. She died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.
The prime accused, Ram Singh, was found dead in a cell in the Tihar Jail in March 2013.
On August 31, 2013, another accused, a juvenile at the time of the crime, was convicted and sentenced to three years in a reformation home. He was released from an observation home in December last year.
