A division bench of acting chief justice V K Tahilramani and justice Dr Shalini Phansalkar Joshi admitted the appeal that will come up for hearing in due course of time.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday admitted the appeal filed by Chandrabhan Sanap (29), who was held guilty of raping and murdering the 23-year-old techie Esther Anuhya in 2014. A special women's court had accorded death sentence to Sanap on October 30 last year.
A division bench of acting chief justice V K Tahilramani and justice Dr Shalini Phansalkar Joshi admitted the appeal that will come up for hearing in due course of time.
According to the prosecution, the victim, a native of Andhra Pradesh, had returned to the city on January 5, 2014, after visiting her family in Machilipatnam. After arriving at the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) in Kurla, she met Sanap who offered to drop her home in Andheri for Rs300. He later raped and murdered her and tried to get rid of the body in the bushes along the Eastern Express Highway in Bhandup by burning it.
After a search, her family found the body on January 16. Sanap was arrested in March. Subsequently, he was charged with rape and kidnapping, among other charges. The state government has also filed a petition seeking confirmation of the death sentence, which will be heard along with Sanap's appeal.
The trial court, while convicting and sentencing Sanap, had noted that the case fell under the category of "rarest of rare", and maintained that the society's abhorrence to the crime of rape and murder alone compelled the legislature to introduce the death penalty.
Detailing the factors behind awarding of capital punishment, the court pointed out that the manner in which the offense was executed, the conduct of the accused, the enormity of the crime, and the "shock" it left on the collective conscience of society demanded that Sanap be awarded the maximum punishment. The court further held that the social abhorrence and shock the incident evoked was parallel to that of the Nirbhaya case in Delhi.
The court further maintained that if the object of punishment was to be achieved, capital punishment has to be awarded, as it alone sends a message to the society and to the wrong-doers.
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