Dipak Misra, J. [for himself and Ashok Bhushan, J.

] The cold evening of Delhi on 16th

December, 2012 could not have even remotely planted the feeling in the twenty-three
year old lady, a para- medical student, who had gone with her friend to watch a film at
PVR Select City Walk Mall, Saket, that in the next few hours, the shattering cold night
that was gradually stepping in would bring with it the devastating hour of darkness when
she, alongwith her friend, would get into a bus at Munirka bus stand to be dropped at a
particular place; and possibly could not have imagined that she would be a prey to the
savage lust of a gang of six, face brutal assault and become a playful thing that could be
tossed around at their wild whim and her private parts would be ruptured to give vent to
their pervert sexual appetite, unthinkable and sadistic pleasure. What the victims had not
conceived of, it all happened, as the chronology of events would unroll. The attitude,
perception, the beastial proclivity, inconceivable self-obsession and individual centralism
of the six made the young lady to suffer immense trauma and, in the ultimate eventuate,
the life-spark that moves the bodily frame got extinguished in spite of availing of all the
possible treatment that the medical world could provide. The death took place at a
hospital in Singapore where she had been taken to with the hope that her life could be
saved.

2. The friend of the girl survived in spite of being thrown outside the bus along with the
girl and the attempt of the accused-appellants to run over them became futile as they, by
their slight movement, could escape from being crushed under the bus, and the appellants
left them thinking that they were no more alive. Lying naked, as the clothes were
removed from their bodies, they shouted for help and as good fortune would have it, the
night patrolling vehicle, a motor cycle, arrived and the said man, Raj Kumar, PW-72,
gave the shirt to the boy and contacted the control room from which a Bolero patrol van
came and they brought a bed sheet and tore it into two parts and gave a piece to each of
the victims so that they could cover themselves and feel civil. The PCR van took the
victims to the Safdarjung Hospital where treatment commenced.

3. The present case is one where there can be no denial that the narrative is long, the
investigation has been cautious and to bring home the charge, modern and progressive
scientific methods have been adopted. Mr. Siddharth Luthra, learned senior counsel for
the respondent-State, has made indefatigable endeavour to project that the investigation is
flawless and exemplary; and Mr. M.L. Sharma and Mr. A.P. Singh, learned counsel for
the appellants, have severely criticized it as faulty on many a score and that it is
completely biased; and Mr. Sanjay R. Hegde, learned senior counsel, the friend of the
Court, in his own way, has highlighted that the investigation is not only flawed but also
unreliable which deserves chastisement and warrants rejection. Many facets of the
investigation that pertain to recording of dying declaration, recording of statements of
witnesses under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the medical
examination, holding of the test identification parade, the manner and method of search
and seizure and the procedure of arrest have been seriously commented upon. That apart,
criticism is advanced from many a spectrum to strengthen the stance that it does not meet
the standard and test determined by law. Needless to say, the factual score and the
investigation have to withstand the test of reliability and acceptability. The appreciation
of evidence brought on record requires to be appositely scrutinized to adjudge the fact
whether the appellants are guilty of their culpability or there has been public pressure, as
alleged, to falsely implicate the appellants or to treat them as guinea pigs to save others
and accept the hypothesis that the prosecution has booked them at the instance of some
political executives or to save a situation which a disturbed society perceives as a
collective catastrophe on the paradigm of social stability and to sustain its faith in the
investigation to keep the precept of rule of law alive. In essence, the submission is that
the whole exercise, namely, investigation and trial, has been carried out with the sole
purpose for the survival of the prosecuting agency. We have stated in the beginning that
Mr. Sharma and Mr. Singh appearing for the appellants commenced their submission
with all the vehemence and sensitivity at their command to strike at the root of the
prosecution branding it as suspicious, absolutely unreliable, apathetic to the concept of
individual dignity and engaged in maladroit effort to book the vulnerable and the
innocent so as to disguise and cover their inefficiency to catch the real culprits. In the
course of our deliberation, we shall dwell upon the same and keenly scrutinize the
justifiability of the aforesaid criticism.

The Prosecution Narrative