Supreme Court to hear Nirbhaya gang-rape convicts' plea challenging Delhi HC's order

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday will hear the appeal of the convicts in the horrific December 16 gang-rape case, challenging the Delhi High court order which had sentenced the four convicts to the gallows after keeping in view the fact that it was a rarest of the rare case.

The appeal, which is being heard by the apex court bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra, is at the fag end of the case.

The convicts –  Akshay, Pawan, Vijay and Mukesh have challenged the Delhi High Court order which had sentenced the four of them to the gallows.

The rape which had occurred on the December 16, 2012, had seen massive protests across India, especially in the national capital, where a countless youths had spilled out on the streets and at prominent places, asking for the heads of the culprits.

The brutal rape by six persons, including a juvenile, was committed inside a moving bus when the victim along with her male-friend were returning home from watching a movie and had boarded the bus at Munirka bus-stop.

The case was sensational for the grade of brutality which was committed during it, with disgorged bowels and a battered body completing the details. The doctors were reported as shocked when they first saw the state of the victim and so was everyone who heard of it on TV or elsewhere.

The incident, which engulfed the media space like a wildfire for months, also resulted in a committee for reappraisal of the laws on rape, known as Justice J.S. Committee, which submitted its recommendations on January 23, 2013.

The committee went through the laws related to immoral trafficking, crimes against women at workplaces, child sex abuse, among other crimes, and bore its weight against the mob sentiment prevailing then, when it ruled out death penalty and chemical-castration as one of punishments for rape, and recommended life -imprisonment instead.

The six accused were awarded death sentence in September 2013, the sentence being upheld by the Delhi High Court as well in 2014.

While others waited for their fate, Ram Singh, one of the six accused, hanged himself in his cell inside the Tihar Jail in March 2013.