High Court confirms life imprisonment for remainder of natural life in pre-planned gang rape and murder.

The victim, a 15-year-old girl, was allegedly lured from Wadala by Accused No. 3 (Santosh) and kept in a flat in Nalasopara occupied by Accused No. 1 (Rahul).

Evidence from PW-25 (Tiwari) indicated that all three accused repeatedly raped the victim.

In May 2014, Accused Nos. 1 and 2 murdered the victim by strangulation, packed her body in a red trolley bag, and transported it from Mumbai to Talegaon Railway Station, where it was abandoned.

Crucially, the victim had concealed a SIM card in her undergarments, which allowed police to trace PW-25 and eventually the accused.

Physical evidence included a nylon rope found at Accused No. 1’s flat matching the rope used to tie the victim.

The Trial Court convicted the appellants under Sections 363, 366-A, 376-D, 302, and 201 r/w 120-B of the IPC, and Sections 4 and 6 of the POCSO Act, sentencing them to life imprisonment for the remainder of their natural lives.

The court primarily applied Section 302 (murder), Section 376-D (gang rape), and Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

It relied on Section 32(1) of the Indian Evidence Act regarding the admissibility of statements made by a deceased person as to the circumstances of the transaction resulting in death.

Regarding sentencing, the court applied the precedent set in *Gauri Shankar v. State of Punjab* and *Ravinder Singh v. State Govt. of NCT of Delhi*, which holds that while a Trial Court cannot impose a sentence of "remainder of natural life" under Section 302, the High Court possesses the power to do so.

The court found the chain of circumstantial evidence complete.

It held that the deceased’s disclosure to PW-25 about the rapes and the accused's plan to send her away was admissible as a "transaction resulting in death" under Section 32(1) of the Evidence Act, as the murder followed her resistance to these acts.

The scientific match between the nylon rope seized from Accused No. 1's flat and the rope on the victim's body provided a direct link to the crime scene.

Call Detail Records (CDR) and tower locations corroborated the movements of Accused Nos. 1 and 2 from Nalasopara to Pune and back, matching the testimony of taxi drivers PW-6 and PW-16.

The court rejected the defense's challenge to the search and seizure, noting that the recovery of the bag purchase receipt and ATM cards in Accused No. 1's flat was consistent with the investigation's timeline.

Regarding the sentence, the Court modified the Trial Court's order: it noted that while the Sessions Judge lacked the power to specify the "remainder of natural life" for the Section 302 conviction, the High Court exercised its own jurisdiction to confirm that sentence given the "extreme depravity" and brutal nature of the crime.

The sentence under Section 376-D (remainder of natural life) was affirmed as being within the Trial Court's statutory power.

All appeals were dismissed.