Reva Khetrapal, J.

1. In an epoch when sexual assaults and ravishments are the order of day, when young men (and even old ones) revel in public declaration of their promiscuous pursuits, when not only the streets but schools, colleges and work-places are approached by the vulnerable with trepidation and even the judge has to be sensitized to gender issues, the rape of a young girl hardly out of her teens, would have gone unnoticed as scores of other violations of infants, girls and women, but for fact that a public outraged at the manner in which the entrails of the ravished were culled out of her body, leaving her to die, stripped of all human dignity, completely unattired, in the darkness of a wintry night, on a thoroughfare, took to the streets in their quest for justice. This had the trigger effect of impelling the investigative agencies into using such tools of investigation as had lain in their tool-kit hitherto before practically unused, to nail the culprits. Did they indeed manage to foist the guilt on the guilty is the subject matter of the present death reference and appeals. But before delving any further into this arena, it is deemed appropriate to delineate the stark facts, as nearly as possible, in the order of their occurrence.

2. The victims are the complainant/eye-witness (PW-1) and the prosecutrix who has not lived to recount her story, though has chronicled the same in the form of ‘dying declarations’. The offenders before the Court are the four convicts, namely Mukesh, Akshay @ Thakur, Pawan @ Kalu, and Vinay. Besides them is the fifth culprit, Ram Singh, who allegedly snapped his own life chord, possibly on account of the rigors and mortifications of trial and against whom the proceedings have consequently abated. Lastly, there is a Juvenile in Conflict with Law (JCL) whose case was dealt with before the appropriate forum and need not detain us. Apart from these key players, there is another player of some import who has thrown light on the incident, he having suffered a robbery on the same ill-fated bus on which the alleged offences were committed, at the hands of the very same convicts, just a little before the prosecutrix and the complainant ill-advisedly boarded the same. He is prosecution witness Ram Adhar who after being divested of his meager possessions was unceremoniously thrown out of the bus, the inmates whereof apparently moved on in pursuit of fresh prey.

3. The warp and weft of the case of prosecution is as under:-

(i) On 16.12.2012 accused Ram Singh, Mukesh, Akshay @ Thakur, Pawan @ Kalu, Vinay and the JCL had dinner at the jhuggi of accused Ram Singh. Thereafter, the accused persons conspired to take bus bearing No. DL-1CP-0149, which was being habitually driven by Ram Singh as an employee of Yadav Travels and which was in his custody on the date of the incident, and pick up passengers who they would rob and also pick up a woman passenger to satiate their sexual appetite.

(ii) Pursuant to the conspiracy, the accused persons picked up Ram Adhar on 16.12.2012 at about 8:30 PM, robbed him of all his valuables and beat him before throwing him out of the bus.

(iii) The complainant and the prosecutrix had seen a movie at PVR Select City Mall, Saket and then taken an auto-rickshaw till Munirka Bus Stand. At Munirka Bus Stand, they boarded the bus in which the crime took place. The accused persons took Rs. 10/- each as fare from both the victims.

(iv) A few minutes after boarding the bus, they switched off the lights of the bus and three of the accused persons, namely, Ram Singh, Akshay Kumar and JCL started misbehaving with the complainant asking him why he was with the girl: “Tu itni raat ko ladki lekar kahan ghoom raha hai”. Thereupon, an altercation took place and the three of the accused persons then started to slap and beat up the complainant, who retaliated. Thereafter, the two other accused, namely, Vinay and Pawan joined in hitting him with two iron rods and tore off all his clothes.

(v)