PUNE: The family members of the 22-year-old victim, who was gangraped and murdered in 2007 after being picked up in office at Wipro BPO (then Spectramind), on Monday said that the Bombay High Court (HC) outweighed the convicts’ rights over right of the victim.
The High Court on Monday commuted death sentence of the two convicts into life imprisonment for 35 years.
“They killed her in the most brutal manner. The State must appeal against this judgement in the Supreme Court. Earlier the district court, High Court and Supreme Court had confirmed their death sentence. Even the President had rejected their mercy petition. Therefore, the delay in execution should not be allowed to give them relief as this will be misused by such people,” said the woman’s brother-in-law.
Neelam Gorhe, the Deputy Chairman of Maharashtra Legislative Council, shot off a letter to government to investigate delay in execution of Purushottam Borate (38) and Pradeep Kokade (32). “The HC judgement gives new lease of life to these convicts. There should be investigation in delay of their execution and responsibility should be fixed,” Gorhe said.
‘Inordinate delay’
The convicts had approached the Bombay High Court in April this year contending that there was an inordinate delay of 1,509 days, or more than 50 months, in the execution of their death sentence which was a violation of their fundamental rights, and seeking commutation of the death sentence.
The convicts moved the high court through their lawyer Yug Choudhary, seeking to halt their execution after the Pune Sessions Court issued a death warrant fixing June 24 as the scheduled date of their hanging.
The convicts also said that they were kept in solitary confinement in Yerwada Central Jail, for seven years after their conviction.
Case had shocked IT circles
The crime, which sent shock waves in IT circles in Pune, took place on November 1, 2007, when the victim was proceeding to work in a cab driven by Borate.
She was picked up around 10 pm and Borate was expected to drop the victim to her workplace in the IT Park, Hinjawadi and his friend, Kokade was in the cab with him at that time. She was talking on phone with her boyfriend and did not realise where they were headed. At 11 pm, her boyfriend heard her ask the driver why had he stopped the car after which the phone was disconnected and was unreachable. Her body was found next day near Gahunje village on Pune-Mumbai Expressway. Her veins were cut with a knife and she was strangulated with a dupatta.
The duo were arrested a day later and tried in the Pune Sessions Court which sentenced them to death on March 20, 2012. The President had rejected their mercy petition in 2017.
A division bench of Justices BP Dharmadhikari and Swapna Joshi on Monday allowed the petitions filed by the convicts seeking a stay on the execution of their death warrant. “We find that the delay in executing the death penalty in the present case was undue, inordinate and unreasonable,” the court said in its judgement.
