Delhi govt to challenge Chhawla gang-rape acquittals in SC

Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena has approved the filing of a petition in the Supreme Court challenging its decision to acquit three convicts in the 2012 Chhawla rape-and-murder case who were awarded the death sentence by a lower court, officials said on Monday.

Saxena has also approved engaging Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to represent the Delhi government in the case, a senior official said.

The three were awarded the death sentence by a trial court which was upheld by the Delhi high court for the gruesome rape and murder of a 19-year old woman on February 9, 2012 at Chhawla, Dwarka, Delhi.

They had appealed against the sentence at the Supreme Court which set aside the trial court and high court orders in its judgment on November 7, 2022.

"The LG has approved the filing of a review petition in the Supreme Court against its decision of acquitting the three accused," a senior Delhi government official said.

The SC's acquittal prompted the parents of the 19-year-old woman to seek police protection out of fear, officials said.

The acquittal of the accused had led to massive outrage with women's rights activists criticising the decision saying it will embolden the accused.

While acquitting the three men, the Supreme Court had said the law does not permit courts to punish an accused on the basis of moral conviction or on suspicion alone.

The court made the observation while noting that a kind of agony and frustration may be caused to society in general and to the family of the victim in particular if the accused involved in the heinous crime go unpunished or are acquitted.

The bench had said the prosecution failed to provide leading, cogent, clinching and clear evidence including those related to DNA profiling and call detail records (CDRs) against the accused, and said the trial court also acted as a passive umpire.

According to the prosecution, the woman was from Uttarakhand and worked in Gurgaon's Cyber City. She was returning from her workplace and was near her home when the three men abducted her in a car.

When she didn't return home, her parents lodged a missing persons report, the prosecution said, adding the woman's mutilated and decomposing body was found in a village in Rewari, Haryana.

The police found multiple injuries on the woman's body.

Further investigation and autopsy revealed she was attacked with car tools, glass bottles, metal objects, and other weapons. She was also raped, they said.

Police arrested the three men involved in the crime and said one of the accused allegedly took revenge after the woman turned down his proposal.