Dec 16 robbery case: Arguments on charges to start from May 28

A Delhi court today fixed May 28 for commencement of arguments on framing of charges in a robbery case involving December 16 gangrape accused.
Additional Sessions Judge Daya Prakash, who was scheduled to hear arguments on framing of charges in the case today, put it off till May 28 while a copy of some of the documents, which were filed along with the charge sheet, were provided to the accused in the court.
Police had filed the charge sheet in the case on March 15 before a magistrate who had taken cognisance and had later transferred the case to the sessions court as the offences for which the accused have been chargesheeted are exclusively "triable" by a sessions judge.

The six persons, including a juvenile, had allegedly beaten and robbed a carpenter before raping and assaulting a 23-year-old girl in the moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, last year. The victim later died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.
Accused Ram Singh had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail on March 11. The juvenile is facing proceedings in the case before the Juvenile Justice Board.
The trial against the four accused in the gang rape case is being conducted on a day-to-day basis by a special fast track court here.

The police, in its 15-page charge sheet in the robbery case, has alleged that bus driver Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh, along with the juvenile, had snatched 35-year-old carpenter Ram Adhar's mobile phone and Rs 1,500 after luring him into the bus.

The accused have been booked for the offences under sections 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person), 342 (wrongfully confining any person), 394 (person voluntarily causing hurt in committing or attempting to commit robbery), 395 (dacoity), 412 (dishonestly receiving stolen property knowing that it was obtained by dacoity) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC.
Proceeding against Ram Singh have abated following his death.