“Taking the serious injuries, the severe nature of offence committed by the convicts, we are upholding the sentence”, said the Judges while delivering the verdict.
A trial court had ruled in 2013 that the convicts found guilty in Nirbhaya case, should be hanged and the High Court also confirmed the sentence. But the four accused – Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh – challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court.
On December 16 2012, the young woman and her friend boarded a bus in south Delhi. But, they were attacked and the woman was gang-raped by six men inside the moving bus. The convicts brutalized her with an iron rod, pulling out her intestines. She died at a Singapore hospital 13 days later.
While one of those six men, Driver Ram Singh committed suicide inside the prison, the sixth one walked free after spending three years at a correction home, as he was a juvenile (just short of 18 years of age) during the crime. His release sparked rage, forcing the government to amend the juvenile law, which would now ensure that a person between 16 to 18 years of age would be treated as an adult if they commit a heinous crime.