Nirbhaya Rape Case [Mukesh & Anr. V. State (NCT Of Delhi) & Ors.]

Published On: 1st April, 2024

Authored By: Aditya Singh

Jamia Hamdard University, New Delhi

Nirbhaya Rape case[1] (Mukesh & Anr. V. State (NCT Of Delhi) & Ors)[2]:

Facts of case:

On the night of December 16, 2012, the victim and her friend were returning home from watching the movie Life of Pi. They saw the movie and then got on an off-duty charter bus at Munirka Bus Stand, where six other guys, including the bus driver, were already on board.

The bus, which had yellow and green lines/stripes and the name YADAV printed on it, was destined for Dwarka-Palam Road, but it began to move off-route, and the guys closed the vehicle’s doors. Suspecting something was amiss, the victim’s companion raised an outcry, but he was shouted down, and a chaotic struggle broke out as the inebriated men began abusing the victim. The victim was pushed to the back of the bus and gang-raped for an hour.

As the victim fought back, one of the juvenile attackers pushed an iron rod into her private parts and tore her intestines apart. While this was going on, the bus driver drove the bus all around Delhi following the attack; both of them were thrown out of the bus and died on the side of the road. A passerby discovered the victim and his friend half-dead on the side of the road and reported it to Delhi Police.

While the cops arrived, the woman was rushed to Safdarjung Hospital, where doctors discovered she had only 5% of her intestine remaining within her body. The victim was unable to withstand her injuries and died on December 29, 2012, at Mt. Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, from sepsis with multiple organ failure as a result of severe traumas. The victim stated in her Dying Declaration that she desired justice against the six attackers, namely Ram Singh, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and the juvenile.

Judgement:

All six men, including a juvenile, were convicted in the Nirbhaya Rape Case.
Ram Singh, a bus driver, committed suicide during the trial.
Mukesh, Akshay, Pawan, and Vinay were sentenced to 3 years in a Reform Facility.
The Supreme Court dismissed the review petition filed by Akshay Singh on 18 December 2019.
The 4 convicts, who received the death penalty for the gang rape and murder of a medical student, were hanged on 3 March 2020.
The death warrant was issued after the Tihar Jail Authorities informed the Trial Court that 3 of the convicts had exhausted all legal options.
Akshay Singh has not filed a Curative Petition or Mercy Plea to the President, which was refused.

About the Rapist[3]:

All the men in this case hold a very unique personality trait, like the juvenile who refused to get out of his juvenile prison and insisted that he be kept in jail for a longer time because it was the first time in his life that he got a bed, clothes, and regular two-time food. After releasing him from jail in 2015, the Delhi government gave him Rs 10,000 and a sewing machine[4] to start a new life, although new reports say otherwise. The reports say now that he is in south India and works as a cook.

Pawan Gupta: He used to sell fruits to fulfill the needs of his family. He used to live in a normal house with his brother, father, and mother. He was only 19 years old when he raped Nirbhaya.

His age was one of the main reasons that the case took so long to get to its final stages. In the beginning of the case, the lawyer tried to show Pawan as a juvenile. The defense they took for Pawan was that he raped her out of childishness; he didn’t know what he was doing.

Akshay Thakur: He was 28 years old when he raped her and flew from Delhi to his home town in Bihar. He was a married man and had a 10-year old . When the doctor examined the body of Nirbhaya, they found a lot of bite marks, and those were given to her by Thakur.

Vinay Sharma: He was 20 years old and was a gym trainer.

Mukesh: He was 26 years old, he was younger brother of Ram Singh and he said that he was driver in the bus during that night and he didn’t did anything wrong with her bit the court said that they all had common intention and his lawyer also said that he was sexually assaulted in the jail[5] and we all can’t forget his interview with the BBC[6] .He didn’t have any regret or shame about it; in fact, he said that any girl from a respectable house won’t get out of her house at 9 p.m., and for rape, the main fault is girls and boys. He said that if he gets the death penalty, the girls in India will get more unsafe because the rapists of those girls will kill them eventually.

Ram Singh: He was 30 years old and was the brother of Mukesh. He was an antisocial person; he was a rapist, an alcohol consumer, and a widower. After his arrest, he committed suicide in the Tihar jail.

Amendment After Nirbhaya rape case :

After a female student was gang-raped in December 2012 in the Nirbhaya case, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 was approved. The Act amended a number of sections of the Criminal Procedure Code, Indian Evidence Act, and Indian Penal Code. By way of this amendment, several new offenses have been recognized and incorporated into the Indian Penal Code, including acid attack (Section 326 A & B), voyeurism (Section 354C), stalking (Section 354D), attempt to disrobe a woman (Section 354B), sexual harassment (Section 354A), and sexual assault which causes death or injury causing a person to be in persistent vegetative state (Section 376A). The Act also amended the already existing offenses to make them more stringent. Notably, the definition of rape in Section 375 was broadened to include acts in addition to penetration. Also, Section 370 was replaced with Section 370 and 370A.

Aftermath of Nirbhaya Rape case:

Although the amendment after the Nirbahaya Rape case the rape laws got strict but the rape offence are still that brutal like the Shakti Mills gang Rape[7] 2013 5 men including a Juvenile raped a 22 year old Photo journalist at Mumbai Shakti mills compound weeks later a 18 year old telephone operator reported that she was also raped in the same compound of that mill in march 2014 Mumbai court found 5 men guilty in those 2 rape cases and awarded death penalty to 3 repeat offenders but in 2021 Bombay High Court changed the death penalty to life imprisonment . In 2016 Jisha rape and murder[8] case a 29 year old Dalit law student was found raped and murdered at her home in Kerala she was stabbed 30 time and her body was severely mutilated her injuries indicated violence and possible torture her injuries indicated the presence of alcohol An Assamese Labourer sole accused was awarded death penalty .December 2016 Ariyalur gang Rape and murder A pregnant 17 year old dalit girl was by a Hindu munnani leader and 3 of his friend in ariyalur they also pull out the Foetus out of her womb by cutting her her Genitilia the victim was carrying the prime accused child and was insisting on marrying him but he refused because she belonged to a lower caste all four accused were arrested . Unnao rape case a 17 year old was raped in up’s Unnao the former BJP MLA Kuldeer Singh Sengar was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Kathua gang rape and murder[9] 2018 six men and a juvenile raped a 8 year old muslim girl near J&K’S Kathua 6 out of 7 accused were convicted and one was acquitted 3 were sentenced to life imprisonment and other were in jail for 3 to 5 years. in 2019 Hyderabad gang rape and Murder 4 people allegedly raped and murdered a 26-year-old Vetenary Doctor in hyderabad’s Shadnagar her burnt body was found the 4 accused were killed in a police encounter. in 2020 Hathras Gang rape and murder case 4 upper caste men raped a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras she died 2 week later in Hospital after her death the victim was ‘forciblly’ cremated by the cops without family’s consent the senior officer says that no semen was found in body of victim later the 4 accused were arrested.

Conclusion:

After so much years and the changes in our rape laws we can say that the punishment for rape is better but with the punishment the crime is also getting more serious like in majority of famous rape case its just not a rape case instead it’s also a murder case as well and the reason behind most of the rape cases is either love angle or a fight between two parties or a person let his intrusive thoughts win over the morals because as we all know that the women private is somewhat considered sacred people commit rape just to show their dominance because if the society knows that she has been raped the perspective of society changes toward her like we hear a common thing from the people that she must herself showed interest or she wear small clothes that’s why this happened and we haven’t even touched the area of marital rape because it is still unclear that we can consider it as rape or not because it falls in the ambit of rape which is without the consent but at the same time the both the person are married to each other recently Allahabad high court gave the judgement that marital rape is not a rape[10] whereas after that the Gujrat high court[11] gave the judgement that marital rape is also a form of rape now it depends upon you that what you consider that is it a rape or not and if it is not a rape than what truly is Marital Rape.

To know more about the crime against women/Sexual Assault you can refer to the yearly reports of the NCRB Chapter – 3A — Crime Against Women (States/UTs) Chapter 3A.3, 3A.4,3A.5,3A.11 these are the following reports on Rape (the number state wise)

And to know about the crime against Children refer to yearly report of NCRB Chapter 4A

.4A.9 4A.10 (POCSO act victim ages)

According to a report from NCRB in 2021 India lodged an average of 86 rapes daily and 49 offence against women per hour in 2021 and 99% of sexual assault are still unreported [12]