NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today upheld the death penalty+ for the four convicts for the 2012 gang-rape and murder of Nirbhaya.

“The Nirbhaya rape-cum-murder case+ is rarest of rare case and we are compelled to give extreme punishment to ensure justice,” said the apex court, while delivering the order.

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What the judges have said in the 429-page judgment:

• “The present case clearly comes within the category of ‘rarest of rare case’ where the question of any other punishment is ‘unquestionably foreclosed’. If at all there is a case warranting award of death sentence, it is the present case.”
• “The dying declarations… do withstand close scrutiny and they are consistent with each other.”
• “It is absolutely obvious that the accused persons had found an object for enjoyment in her and, as is evident, they were obsessed with the singular purpose sans any feeling to ravish her as they liked, treat her as they felt.”
• “It sounds like a story from a different world where humanity has been treated with irreverence.”
• “We are compelled to arrive at the singular conclusion that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances now brought on record.”
• “The wanton lust, vicious appetite…have driven the appellant to commit a crime which can bring in a ‘tsunami’ of shock in the mind of the collective, send a chill down the spine of the society.”
• “After throwing the informant and the deceased victim, the convicts tried to run the bus over them so that there would be no evidence against them. They made all possible efforts in destroying the evidence…”
• “The cruel manner in which the gang-rape was committed in the moving bus… and the coldness with which both the victims were thrown naked in cold wintery night of December, shocks the collective conscience of the society.”
• “The gruesome offences were committed with highest viciousness. Human lust was allowed to take such a demonic form.”
• “The evidence brought on record with regard to finger prints is absolutely impeccable”

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As soon as it read out its order, the packed court began to applaud.

The top court was hearing an appeal filed by the four convicts – Akshay, Pawan, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh – who challenged the Delhi High Court’s March 2014 confirmation of the death sentence handed to them by a trial court in 2013.

“The brutal, barbaric, and demonaical conduct of the convicts shook the conscience of humanity and they don’t deserve leniency+ ,” the top court said.

Nirbhaya’s father said something similar this morning.

“Leave the Supreme Court, even God will not forgive such people. They will be awarded death sentence,” said Nirbhaya’s father. “Only the death penalty (will do) for culprits now, it should not be denied,” Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi had said ahead of the hearing.

“We have full faith in the judicial system and I am sure that the Supreme Court will announce death sentence in its verdict for the guilty. I am sure the Supreme Court will give justice to my daughter. This will set an example for the world,” she added

The convicts’ lawyer+ had a dissenting view.

“You can’t hang someone just to send a message to society. Human rights have been slaughtered today,” said AP Singh, the convicts’ lawyer, to ANI. “Justice is not done, we will file a review petition after reading the order,” he added.

On December 16, 2012, Nirbhaya, the 23-year-old paramedic, was raped and brutalised with an iron rod on a moving bus in Delhi. She and her male friend were then thrown out of the bus. Nirbhaya lost her battle for life in a Singapore hospital on December 29.

The top court today commended the work of the Delhi Police and bringing the criminals to book.

“The investigations done by Delhi Police was fair and impartial and the probe has passed the test of fairness and reliability,” the SC said.

“The dying declaration of Nirbhaya is reliable as it was corroborated by medical and other evidences,” it added.

Of the six accused, Ram Singh hanged himself in prison, while another, who was a juvenile at the time of the crime, was convicted in August last year and will serve the maximum sentence of three years in a reform home.

When the Delhi high court rejected the convicts’ appeal in 2014, it said “debauchery, avarice, profligacy and viciousness appear to be the compelling forces” behind the crime. The court also said the crime was “completely recvolting” and “indubitably been committed in an extremely fiendish, demoniac, barbaric and nefarious manner.”

Today’s apex court appeal was heard by a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra and comprised Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan.

It was expected that the Supreme Court would not grant relief to the accused as Justice Dipak Misra doesn’t hesitate to give a death sentence and is exceedingly sensitive to women’s rights and liberties, ANI news agency said today.