Forwarding arguments on quantum of punishment in the December 16 gangrape case, special public prosecutor Dayan Krishnan said: “The case was the most appropriate case for death sentence” and that it fell in the category of “rarest of rare” cases.
“There cannot be a more appropriate case (for death sentence). There is gangrape of most brutal kind, there is insertion of rod, there is pulling of organs with hands. Therefore, there cannot be more diabolical than this case,” Dayan Krishnan told the court.
The parents of the victim, who were present in the courtroom during the arguments had been demanding “death penalty” for all the four accused. The victim’s father said that “justice will be done only when all of them were hanged.”
The prosecution argued that there was “ no element of sympathy, which anyone can have in a case in which the hapless woman was tortured which cannot be even described.”
He maintained that the case had shocked the “collective conscience” of the nation and that the convicts do not deserve any mercy, as they killed the girl who kept on pleading for mercy. He said that if the convicts were awarded a lighter punishment, the “ people will lose faith in the judicial system.”
He submitted: “ If the maximum sentence is not given, the message will go to the society that deviance of this nature will be tolerated. This is an extreme case of depravity and sexual assault.. The sentence which is appropriate is nothing short of death.”
As a defence arguments, advocate Vivek Sharma, appearing on behalf of Pawan put forwards his points by asserting that his client is of very young age and just because he was “merely present” inside the bus during the commission of crime, does not “qualify him to get death penalty”.
On the other hand, advocate A.P. Singh, on behalf of Akshay and Vinay sought leniency citing Mahatma Gandhi’s famous quote that “Only God can give life and only He has the right to take it away” and it also said that the execution would only kill the criminal not the crime.
Initiating an argument on behalf of Mukesh, advocate V.K. Anand said that, “I (Mukesh) was driving the bus and have cooperated in the investigation and it is an admitted fact that at the time of the incident, I was drunk and was not in my state of mind.”