2012 Chhawla gang rape-cum murder case: SC to consider urgent listing of review petition
New Delhi, December 8
A petition seeking review of the Supreme Court’s verdict acquitting three men awarded death penalty for the gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman in Delhi’s Chhawla area in 2012 was on Thursday mentioned before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud for urgent listing.
“I will take a call after going through it,” CJI Chandrachud assured the lawyer who sought urgent listing and an open court hearing of his review petition.
The advocate said public confidence had been shaken after the death penalty awarded to three men was converted into acquittal.
The Delhi Police on Wednesday had filed a petition seeking review of its November 7 verdict acquitting the three accused.
“The prosecution has to bring home the charges levelled against them beyond reasonable doubt, which the prosecution has failed to do in the instant case,” a three-judge Bench led by the then CJI UU Lalit had said in its verdict.
However, the Delhi Police submitted that the medical evidence and scientific report conclusively proved the culpability of the accused.
The victim’s parents also sought review of the acquittal verdict, contending that many crucial facts were not brought to notice of the Supreme Court and certain facts were incorrectly interpreted while allowing the convicts’ appeals.
The three men – Ravi Kumar, Vinod alias Chhotu and Rahul—were accused of abducting, gang-raping and brutally killing the woman in February 2012. Her mutilated body was found three days after her abduction. In 2014, a Delhi trial court awarded death penalty to the three accused in the case, terming it “rarest-of-rare”. Later, the Delhi High Court upheld the death penalty.
According to the prosecution, the woman – who worked in Gurgaon’s Cyber City area—was returning from her workplace and was near her home when the three men abducted her in a car. When she didn’t return home, her parents lodged a missing person report. Later, her mutilated and decomposing body was found in a village in Rewari, Haryana.
