Last week, Delhi High Court upheld the judgement of life imprisonment of five convicts for raping and robbing a Danish woman in Delhi on January 14, 2014. Justice was given to the woman in Danish Woman Rape Case.
The bench, comprising Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice I.S. Mehta, rejecting the appeals, filed by convicts, charged of gang rape and robbing and brutal assault by the judgement dated June 6, 2016 in session court.
Convicts had been charged with robbing and gang-raping the woman at knife-point after dragging her to a deserted place near the Divisional Railway Officers’ Club, which is located about a few hundred meters from the New Delhi Railway Station.
Appeal was challenging the conviction under the various section of Indian Penal Code.
As per the judgement dated April 16, 2018, court refused to take note of discrepancies in the victim’s testimony, stating, “It must be remembered that PW-12 came back to India nearly 18 months after the incident and was deposing in Court on 1st July 2015. Some leeway has to be given for this lapse of time and the further fact that she had suffered a traumatic experience. Her uncertainty has to be understood in this context. She was in a foreign land encountering perfect strangers. The time of rape was in the evening hours of 14th January 2014 when sunset occurred early. Therefore, her uncertainty about the exact identification of some of the accused was understandable.”
The court further elaborated,
“In the considered view of the Court, the convincing evidence of PW-12 has been fully corroborated by the forensic evidence in the form of the DNA Profile analysis. This by itself conclusively proves not only the presence of the accused at the scene of crime but their involvement in the commission of gang rape on the victim.”
On no grounds for interference, court dismissed the appeal.