New Delhi: The Delhi High Court will be hearing a petition challenging an order invoking in-camera proceedings in the Delhi gangrape case on Friday. The Saket district judge on Wednesday upheld the district court's decision to restrict the media from covering the rape case. On Thursday, it was decided that the accused will be represented by lawyers who had volunteered to take up their case.
Earlier, the Saket Bar Association had said that nobody would represent the five accused who brutally assaulted after gangraping the 23-year-old paramedical student on December 16. Meanwhile, January 14 has been fixed as the next date of hearing in the case.
The Delhi police on Thursday apologised to the high court for lapses in their status report. A fresh report was submitted with the names of police officials patrolling the area, on December 16, in which the Delhi braveheart was gangraped.
The five accused - bus driver Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur - were produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Namrita Aggarwal, who conducted the proceedings in-camera. The five accused are at present in judicial custody. The case of the sixth accused, reportedly a minor, is being heard by a Juvenile Justice Board.
One of five men charged with the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student said the police tortured him in custody and he and at least three of his co-defendants say they are innocent, lawyers said on Thursday. The five accused arrived in court for a closed hearing with their faces covered by scarves, and accompanied for the first time by defence lawyers.
The victim, a paramedical student, was brutally raped and assaulted in a moving bus here on the night of December 16, 2012 and she died of injuries on December 29 in a Singapore hospital. The court on January 5 had taken cognisance of the charge sheet against five of the accused yesterday under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 376 (2)(g) (gangrape), 377 (unnatural offences), 395 (dacoity), 396 (murder in dacoity), 394 (hurting in dacoity), 201 (destruction of evidence), 120-B (conspiracy), 34 (common intention) and 412 (dishonestly
receiving stolen property) of the IPC.
Meanwhile, the court issued notice to the Delhi Police to file its response on an allegation by an advocate that the police and the Safdarjung Hospital were "negligent" in dealing with the case and the victims.
The five face various charges including murder, gang rape and abduction and prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty. The sixth suspect is being investigated separately to determine if he is below the age of 18, as he says he is.
The five accused were arrested in the days following the December 16 attack when the bus was identified by footage on security cameras, leading police to the driver and alleged gang leader Ram Singh.
With Additional Inputs from PTI
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