Life term for 2 President’s guards in 2003 rape

Dismissing the convicts’ plea for leniency,Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) S K Sarvaria said,“The fact that they were working in the Presidential Body Guard department of the President of India but still committed such heinous offences calls for exemplary and deterrent punishment.”

Citing a number of Supreme Court and High Courts judgments that advocated stern punishment for rape,the court observed that that it was imperative in the given time and circumstances that the convicts were shown no clemency in the matter of punishment.

“In view of the above authorities emerging from the superior courts,it is clear that the sentence in rape cases should be deterrent and there should not be any misplaced sympathy with the convicts on the question of sentence,” said ASJ Sarvaria.

Harpreet and Satyender were also sentenced to life under the charge of robbery and asked to pay a monetary penalty of Rs 9,000 each.

Kuldeep and Munish,who were acquitted of the charge of gangrape but convicted for helping the other two kidnap the Delhi University girl and rob money from her boyfriend,were directed to pay a penalty of Rs 7,000 each.

On October 6,2003,the victim had gone to Buddha Jayanti Park,near Rashtrapati Bhawan,with her boyfriend to attend a programme of exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama. The four convicts beat up the youth,and while two of them raped the girl,the other two stood guard,according to the prosecution.

After the verdict,the counsel for the rape convicts,Ranbir Sharma said,“We will definitely go to Delhi High Court in appeal. There are several lacunae in the prosecution’s story that have gone unnoticed by the trial court. Moreover,there are no concrete reasons for awarding life imprisonment to the convicts.”

Munish’s counsel,Maninder Singh,expressed dismay over the verdict. “Munish has already spent over six years in jail. We were expecting the court to order his release after sentencing him to the period already served in jail or would award a seven-year term. We will challenge the order in appeal,” Singh said.

Munish’s father Parmal Singh,refused to comment on the verdict and said he would have to wait for another four years for his son to come home. Munish’s mother was however teary-eyed.