Shakti Mills gang-rape case: Bombay high court to hear confirmation petition on July 17

The high court will on July 17, hear the confirmation of the death sentences awarded to the three convicts of the Shakti Mills gang rape case.

A division bench of justices VK Tahilramani and Ajey Gadkari has kept the confirmation petition filed by the state government for hearing on July 17.

Sandeep Shinde and Poornima Kantharia represented the government before the HC.

A confirmation petition was filed in the HC by the state government on April 15, seeking that the death sentence of convicts Vijay Jadhav (19), Mohammad Kasim Bengali (21) and Mohammad Salim Ansari (28), who are common in both the gang rapes that took place in Shakti Mills in 2013, be confirmed.

As per the law, a death sentence awarded by the trial court has to be confirmed by the HC.

The convicts have still not filed an appeal against their death sentence.

On April 4 this year, a sessions court convicted Jadhav, Bengali, Ansari and Siraj Khan for raping a photojournalist on the deserted premises of the defunct Shakti Mills in central Mumbai on August 22, 2013.

Siraj was awarded life imprisonment.

The other three were awarded death penalty by the sessions court under IPC Section 376 (e), which provides for the maximum sentence for a repeat offence of rape.

Jadhav, Bengali and Ansari were earlier convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by the court for the gangrape of a telephone operator at the same premises in July, 2013.

Since it was their second conviction in a gangrape case, the prosecution sought death penalty for the trio by framing an additional charge of repeat offence under section 376 (e). The section was introduced in the IPC after the December 2012 Delhi gangrape.

This is the first time the section has been applied.

The sessions court, while awarding the penalty, observed that the offence was a pre-planned one, and the accused showed no mercy to the woman and had no remorse afterwards.

"Such offences must not be tolerated and there should be zero tolerance for such crimes. If leniency is shown, it will be misplaced sympathy and travesty of justice," the court had said.