Dec 16 gangrape convicts' defence inconsistent; says court

A Delhi court today convicted the four adult accused for gangraping and killing the girl on the night of December 16 while rejectingtheir plea of alibi on the ground that their defence during the trial was "inconsistent" and "contradictory" in nature which further "nails them".
Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna did not consider convict Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta's plea as they failed to establish their innocence through their defence witnesses.
"Considering the inconsistent and contradictory nature of the evidence of alibi led by the accused against the evidence of prosecution which also includes the scientific one, I hold that the accused have miserably failed to discharge the burden of absolute certainty qua their plea of alibi.

"The plea taken by them appears to be an afterthought and rather may read as an additional circumstance to nail the accused," the court said.
During the trial, accused Mukesh admitted his presence in the bus, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta had denied the charges levelled against them while prime accused and bus driver Ram Singh was found dead in his cell in Tihar jail on March 11, merely over a month since the beginning of the proceedings.
Vinay and Pawan had said they went to a musical function programme at a DDA district park in south Delhi while Akshay had said he left for his village a day prior to the incident.

The court dismissed the plea of the trio while citing the apex court judgement which states that "once the prosecution succeeds in discharging its burden, it is then incumbent upon accused to prove it with absolute certainty the circumstances which excludes the possibility of his presence at the place of occurrence at the relevant time," the judge said.