Mumbai (Maharashtra), October 3: Bombay High Court lamented the fact that though there were convictions in crimes against women, the sentences were not proportionate to the gravity and magnitude of the offence. Therefore, to ensure that the victim of a crime, as also the society, has the satisfaction that justice has been done, the High Court refused to reduce the sentence of three men convicted of raping a woman in Pune.

“The sentencing policy adopted by the courts, in such cases, ought to have a stricter yardstick so as to act as a deterrent,” said, while upholding the sentence, the division bench of Justice Sadhana Jadhav and Justice Sarang Kotwal. The High Court refused to reduce the sentence of life imprisonment handed down by the Pune Sessions Court to three convicts - Ranjeet Gade, Ganesh Kamble, and Subhash Bhosale, on October 21, 2011.

“There are a shockingly large number of cases where the sentence of punishment awarded to the accused is not in proportion to the gravity and magnitude of the offence, thereby encouraging the criminal and in the ultimate making justice suffer, by weakening the system’s credibility,” the bench added.

The three convicts - Ranjeet Gade, Ganesh Kamble and Subhash Bhosale are accused of gang-raping a victim on April 1, 2010, and then dumping her near her place of residence.

According to the complaint filed by the rape survivor, she was originally from Nagpur and traveled to the US with her husband but later returned to India in March 2010. Though her husband again went to US, she started working for a private hospital in Pune as she was qualified for the job and did not want her Master’s degree to go to waste.

On April 1, 2010, on her way to a seminar, she first tried boarding a bus but when she realized she was getting late and when offered a lift by two accused in a car, she assuming the car to be a call centre cab going in the same direction as of the seminar venue, she boarded it.

However, rather than traveling to her requested destination, the duo drove the car aimlessly before picking up the third accused. Meanwhile, she was gagged and threatened and then told to call her mother without disclosing her situation, else she would be raped by 8-10 persons. After which the convicts took her to a secluded spot and gang-raped her and then dropped her near her residence.

In their argument, the defense counsels said that the trio was convicted based on witness accounts and their identification by the survivor, which was questionable, as the police had already shown the photo of one of the accused to her before the identification parade. They also said that the allegation of rape was false as the woman had consented to sex with them.

The counsel also said that the trial court had convicted for conspiring, wrongful confinement, rape, gang rape and criminal intimidation and sentenced them to life imprisonment. They pleaded that as the accused had been in jail since 2010, some leniency should be shown, and the sentence be reduced.

Additional public prosecutor S V Sonawane however said that the identification parade and DNA evidence clearly showed that the trio had raped the victim and the victim had vehemently refuted consensual sex, the trial court was right in meting out life sentence, and he requested the honourable bench not entertain the appeals.

After hearing all the counsels, the High Court held that criminal sentencing by the Courts had become a subject of concern. Also, since the convicts had taken advantage of the helplessness of the woman and raped her and subjected her to extreme trauma, the high court said it was not inclined to reduce the sentence and hence dismissed the appeals.

The division bench while appreciating the sentence by the trial court judge expressed dismay at the way the judge had gone into the details of the rape while the survivor was uncomfortable disclosing it adding that such a practice should be avoided.