Bombay high court issues notice to Tiss rape accused

The Bombay high court on Monday issued notices to six college students, who were accused of gang-raping a 23-year-old student of  the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Tiss), a US national on a fellowship, in April 2009.

A division bench were hearing an appeal filed in December 2010 by the state challenging the order of Sewri sessions court which acquitted all the accused on October 6, 2010. The six accused, all students of South Mumbai colleges, are Vinamra Soni, Harshvardhan Yadav, Jaskaran Singh, Anish Borkataki, Dev Colabawala and Kundanraj Borgohain. The appeal stated that the trial court failed to appreciate that the victim had undergone a traumatic experience as a result of which she was mentally disturbed. The appeal added that trial court failed to appreciate that the victim was administered drugs (cannabis) when in fact the evidence of a prosecution’s witness had corroborated this fact. Also, that it failed to appreciate the report of chemical analysis, which had confirmed the presence of cannabis in the victim’s body.

The state’s appeal has urged for quashing of the court’s judgement terming it ‘illegal and bad in law’. It sought for action under section 390 of Criminal Procedure Code under which if the court admits the appeal, the accused will be arrested and produced before the trial court. Additional public prosecutor Aruna Kamat-Pai said the court has called for records from the trial court and the appeal will come up for hearing in six weeks.