Shakti Mill gangrape case: Bombay HC upholds death sentence of 3 convicts

A division bench of Justice B P Dharmadhikari and Justice Revati Mohite Dere dismissed petitions filed by the trio convicts challenging the constitutional validity of the legal provisions under which they were sentenced to death in 2014.

The stringent provision was added after an amendment made by the Parliament in the year 2013 post Nirbhaya gangrape incident.

"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.

The law was challenged by the trio convicts-Vijay Jadhav,Mohammed Kasim Bengali,and Mohammed Salim Ansari-all sentenced to death by a sessions court in 2014 for the gangrape of a city-based photojournalist on August 22, 2013.

The same year, the trio convicts were also found guilty for raping a call centre employee.

Both instances of gangrape had taken place in 2013 in the Shakti Mills compound.

The trials in both the cases were held simultaneously and the conviction was handed out on the same day.

However, the trial court proceeded to pronounce the punishment in the call centre employee case and subsequently allowed a prosecution plea to charge the convicts under the IPC section 376E.

Image: UNI