Mumbai: The counsel for the three men convicted in the Shakti Mills gangrape case here raised questions before the Bombay High Court on Friday on the legal soundness of Section 376 (E) of the Indian Penal Code under which they were awarded the death sentence in 2014.
Advocate Yug Chaudhry, representing the death row convicts Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali and Salim Ansari, told the court the legislature had brought in several provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Act that provides for, among other things, a harsher punishment for rape, in “haste”.
Chaudhry questioned the idea behind Section 376 (E) that provides for the death sentence for a repeat offender of rape. He said while the section for enhanced punishment was introduced in the IPC through the Act, the legislature had failed to introduce a well-laid out procedure in the CrPC for the implementation of the new IPC section.
