HC junks Dec 16 gangrape convicts plea that they were framed

The Delhi High Court today rejected the claim of four convicts, whose death sentence have been confirmed in the December 16 gangrape case, that the case is politically motivated and they have been framed.
A bench of justices Reva Khetrapal and Pratibha Rani said the defence has also not given any suggestion during the cross-examination about any manipulation" in FIR.
"The evidence, in our view, completely rules out the possibility of any manipulation and in fact proves and corroborates the FIR. We also note that there is no suggestion by the defence in the cross-examination about manipulation in the FIR. In any event, it is settled law that an FIR is not an encyclopedia but only the starting point of the investigation," the bench said.

The court gave its finding on a plea, during the hearing of their appeal, that the victim had not identified or named the convicts in the FIR and the police had implicated them due to "political and public pressure".
"The investigators implicated the accused persons through manipulation as by then the incident had attracted attention of the public and the media, due to which political pressure had mounted on the government to such an extent that the investigators who were unable to apprehend the real culprits succumbed to the easier course of putting the accused, who were innocent persons, in the dock to suit their own purposes," the convicts' counsel had told the high court.