Gangrape of woman: Delhi HC upholds 8-year sentence of five

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has upheld the conviction and sentence of five men for gangrape of a woman after luring her to an isolated building here on the pretext of a job interview.

Justice Mukta Gupta said it was apparent that the woman had been "rendered helpless" and raped by the five persons -- Surinder Singh, Dharambir, Manoj Kumar, Kapil Kumar and Prem -- "one after the other".

The high court also said merely because she did not use any force against any of the accused to repel them at the time of the incident does not mean she was a consenting party when she had protested in other ways.

Justice Gupta observed "no woman would consent to having sexual intercourse with a number of people at such a secluded place", while rejecting the appellants' challenge to the trial court's assumption that a lady cannot consent to having sexual intercourse with so many men at one point of time.

The court also refused to reduce the eight-year jail term awarded to the convicts, saying the trial court had taken a lenient view by not awarding them 10-year imprisonment, the minimum sentence prescribed for such offence.

The appellants, apart from challenging their conviction and sentence, had also sought reduction of their jail term to seven years.

The high court also rejected their contention that no test identification parade (TIP) to identify the woman's assailants was conducted, saying since the appellants had been named in the FIR there was no requirement for TIP.