On July 14, the Allahabad High Court upheld the conviction of 71-year-old Ram Swarup in a 1979 gang rape case, reducing his sentence from 7.5 years to four years of rigorous imprisonment. The incident occurred in Pilibhit district, where a minor girl, aged between 15 and 17, was abducted at knife-point by three co-villagers, including Ram Swarup. The girl was taken to a vacant house in Tilhar, where she was confined for a week and repeatedly subjected to gang rape. The court of sessions judge, Pilibhit, had found all three accused guilty and sentenced them to a maximum of seven and a half years of imprisonment in 1983. Ram Swarup’s co-accused, Kali Charan and Ram Lal, passed away during the pendency of their appeal, and the appeal stood abated relating to them in 2022. The high court rejected Ram Swarup’s counsel’s submission to release him on probation, observing that showing undue sympathy to the convict would be a gross miscarriage of justice. The court noted that the social impact of sexual violence is profound and granting probation in this case would be counter-productive to societal interest and the principles of criminal justice. Considering the 47-year-old occurrence and the 43-year pendency of the appeal, the court moderated the sentence, directing Ram Swarup to surrender and serve out the remaining sentence.
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📰 Source: Siasat Gulf