No leniency in rape cases: apex court

New Delhi: Holding that no leniency should be shown in rape cases, the Supreme Court has declined to interfere with the sentence of life imprisonment awarded by the trial court and the High Court to an accused .
A Bench consisting of Justices S. B. Sinha and V. S. Sirpurkar said, “There would be no question of taking a lenient view particularly because of the daring dastardly act on the part of the accused persons in which the appellant took active part in as much as out of the six accused persons, he was one of the three accused who had committed rape on the lady.”
Writing the judgment, Justice Sirpurkar said, “We cannot ignore the fact that the lady was a married person and was tricked into accompanying the accused, who obviously had an evil design. Here was a defenceless married person, who was tricked out of her house taking advantage of the drunkenness of her husband, and then ravished in a most dastardly manner by as many as three persons, one of whom was the appellant before us. Under such circumstances we do not think that any leniency can be shown in the matter of sentence.”
Veer Bhan, Ajmer Singh and Ramesh Kumar gang-raped the wife of Lalchand, in the early hours of February 6, 1999 in Haryana’s Rajapur village after taking her to the fields on the pretext that her husband was lying there in a drunken state.
The Sessions Court awarded life sentence to the three accused and 10 -year imprisonment to the other three . On appeal, the Punjab and Haryana High Court confirmed the life sentence on the three accused and let off the others with the sentence already undergone by them.
The present appeal by Ramesh Kumar is against this judgment.
Two others who were sentenced to life did not prefer an appeal.
Dismissing the appeal and confirming the life sentence, the apex court Bench said: “It cannot be forgotten that out of the three accused only one has come up by way of an appeal. He cannot be treated differently from others who are serving their life sentence.”
Legal Correspondent/The Hindu; Friday, Feb 29, 2008