Court case(2017) 6 SCC 1

On 16 December 2012 a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was gang raped and brutally assaulted with an iron rod in a moving bus in Delhi; she died of her injuries days later. Four adult accused were convicted and sentenced to death by the trial court and the High Court.

The Supreme Court confirmed the convictions and the death sentences. It accepted the three dying declarations, including one made by gestures, and the DNA evidence. Applying Bachan Singh and Machhi Singh, it held that the brutality, the diabolic manner of the crime and its impact on the collective conscience placed the case in the rarest of rare category, with no mitigating circumstance outweighing it.