MOOT PROBLEM

1. On date 1st January, 2024, Raksha, a college student, aged about 24 years,
was celebrating the new year with her friends at the City Centre, Kolkata.

2. At 1 AM, on 2nd January, 2024, after the new year celebration ended, Raksha
and her friends decided to go back home. Raksha, who came to the place of
celebration on a bus, decided to go back on foot alone, since all her friends
came on by-cycles and she could find no means of transportation.

3. At around 1:15 AM while Raksha was crossing a lone street, she was
surrounded by 3 men and one woman. All pointed their knives towards
Raksha and the woman ordered her to give them her purse. Scared, Raksha
surrendered her purse to her and stepped back. While the criminals were
returning, Raksha looked at the woman criminal and screamed “You are an
insult to women”.
4. Enraged, the Female Criminal looked at her accomplices and yelled “Teach
her a lesson”.

5. The three men forcefully grabbed Raksha, and started tearing her clothes.
When Raksha resisted and fought back, The woman criminal grabbed
Raksha’s hair from behind and kept a sharp knife on Raksha’s throat. All three
men, gangraped the victim while the victim helplessly watched but could not
do much because of the knife kept on her throat.

6. The men violently raped, brutalised, assaulted her, slapped, kicked, and
punched her. One of the criminals pulled out a hammer from a bag he was
carrying and smashed it in Raksha’s face, brutally breaking all her teeth and
causing severe injuries. When the entire ordeal ended, the woman criminal
said “She has seen our faces and we can’t let her go”, and slowly slit her
throat.

7. Raksha died within a few minutes, and the woman criminal slowly cut her
body into 34 pieces and kept her body parts in small polyethene packets,
boarded a bus, and throughout the journey from Kolkata to Durgapur, threw
parts of the body of the victim at different places and threw the hammer and
the knife in a river.

8. However, their entire act was caught in a CCTV camera of a nearby shop.
The shop-owner Nandu, saw blood near his shop, and immediately checked
his CCTV camera for the cause of it and was horrified to his core. Nandu then
uploaded the 24 minutes long video on ‘X’ (Formerly known as Twitter) and
tagged Kolkata Police to take action.
9. The video immediately got viral within 3 hours and the entire country erupted
in protest and chaos. Hundreds of candle marches were launched and strict
action was demanded by the public and the police began investigation
immediately.

10. Due to darkness and the poor quality of the camera, only a blurry face of one
of the criminals, the one who assaulted the victim with a hammer, could be
guessed. The police tracked him in Durgapur and arrested him on 2nd June,
2024.

11. As an outcome of long interrogation, the arrested accused revealed his name
as Sumit and revealed the names of others as Bilal, Manjeet and Nancy.
Based on the evidence of the arrested Sumit, rest three were also arrested.

12. However, since no weapon, no part of the body of the victim, and no other
evidence could be gathered against the accused persons, the trial kept getting
delayed as the prosecution kept failing to bring any admissible evidence on
record.

13. After 2 and half years of the incident, the four accused persons were granted
bail from the Hon’ble High Court of Calcutta on the ground that the accused
persons had served 2 years of incarceration with the conclusion of trial
nowhere in sight, they had clean antecedents, the only available material
against them were confession to a police officer, and confession of a
co-accused person, which were no substantive evidences.

14. Even though the bail of the accused persons were cancelled by the Hon’ble
Supreme Court looking at the heinousness of the alleged offense, the entire
country was left shocked and protests erupted across the entire country.
#MurderofJustice, #ThisCountryHatesWomen #MotherJusticeCrying and
other hashtags trended across social media, the video of the brutal rape and
murder was circulated again, panel discussions were conducted on live TV by
senior journalists like Arnab Choudhary, Sudhir Goswami, Barkha Sardesai,
Rajdeep Dutt etc who also collectively hosted a show ‘No Country for
Innocent Women’. The Hon’ble Justice who granted the bail was transferred
to a different state by the Supreme Court collegium but the country could not
forget the ache.

15. The Ruling Party, the HJP, introduced a bill in lok sabha titled “Jaghanya Yaun
Apraadh Suraksha Adhiniyam” and on 2nd January, 2027 the “Heinous Sexual
Offenses Protection Act” was passed and as a tribute to the victim, it was
nicknamed ‘Raksha Act’.

16. As per the Section 4 of the said act, The act was applicable in all cases of
Rape.

17. Section 34 of the said new Act dealt with bail for the covered offenses and laid
conditions, and it was passed as under –
18. Section 34 – Conditions for Grant of Bail –
1. No Direction for grant of bail to any person apprehending arrest under
Section 438 of the CrPC, 1973 shall be passed in favour of any person
accused of any offense to which this Act is applicable.
2. No Person accused of any offense covered under this Act, shall be
granted Bail in exercise of any power conferred under any Act passed by
the Indian Parliament, or the State Legislatures, except when –
a) There are strong grounds to believe that the accused has not
committed such offense, and
b) There are strong grounds to believe that the accused if released on bail
won’t commit any further offense.
3. In addition to the above given conditions, No person accused of any
offense covered under this Act, if jointly charged with any
Non-Compoundable Offense as given under Section 320 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure, 1973, shall be released on bail, except when –
a) He has clean criminal antecedent
b) Has spent three-fourth of the maximum permissible punishment in
custody
4. No person accused of any offense under this Act, shall be released on Bail
only on the ground of illness, infirmity, pregnancy, or old age.
5. Nothing provided under any law made by the parliament or the state
legislature shall permit the court to release any person accused of any
offense to which this act is applicable, to be released merely on the ground
of non-submission of chargesheet.

19. Despite the objections of several criminal law jurists regarding the strict bail
conditions, the Act was received with praises by the general public who were
fed up of raging sexual offenses in the country.

20. On 30th January, 2027, Harjeet Singh, A female student of Lucknow Central
College, Lucknow committed Suicide by pouring kerosene on herself and
setting herself on fire. The hostel authorities, police and the fire department
tried to save her, but since the entire room was set on fire, her body was
almost reduced to ashes.

21. One minute before committing suicide, Harjeet wrote a suicide note and
posted it on Social Media page in which she alleged that on 26th January
2027, at around 11:30 AM, her fellow classmates, Rohit, aged 24, Shabana,
aged 24, and Joseph, aged 24, committed brutal gang rape on her and
attempted to murder her too. She alleged that they had broken her ribcage,
Forearms, and fingers and have tortured her and she has been taking multiple
painkillers to subdue the pain and today she has consumed Fentanyl, and has
got the courage to say and do what is right.
22. Immediately all three were arrested and the police began their investigation,
however, due to almost the entire room being burnt, and no evidence was
found apart from a confession posted on social media page which could have
been written under influence of Fentanyl, the case kept of dragging as the
court was not confident about convicting them but the fear of massive public
outrage kept the court from acquitting them.

23. One year after the arrest, Rohit, Shabana and Joseph applied for bail and the
Sessions Court, Lucknow granted bail to Shabana on the ground that since
she is a woman, Raksha Act does not apply to her since she can’t be alleged
of Rape, while Rohit and Joseph’s bail were denied keeping in mind the
stringent conditions of Section 34 of Raksha Act.

24. Rohit and Joseph appealed to the Hon’ble Allahabad High Court and from
there also the bails were rejected.

25. After spending five years in Jail, The Jail Warden on 20th Feb 2032 found
Rohit and Joseph hanging in their jail cells. The left behind a note, claiming
that they were innocent and god’s curse will fall on everyone who disbelieved
them and kept them among actual murders, rapists and dacoits for years.

26. On 2nd March, 2032, the police found from the archived record of CCTV
footage of a nearby building, that a man jumped out of Harjeet’s room’s
window moments before the room was set on fire and the Police used AI
image enhancement software to complete and clear the image.

27. The person identified was Avinash, a disgruntled ex-boyfriend of Harjeet.

28. Upon learning that two innocent men committed suicide, The entire country
was left shocked and protests erupted across the entire country.
#MurderofJustice, #ThisCountryHatesMen #MotherJusticeCrying and other
hashtags trended across social media, the suicide note of both boys claiming
their innocence was circulated, panel discussions were conducted on live TV
by senior journalists like Arnab Choudhary, Sudhir Goswami, Barkha
Sardesai, Rajdeep Dutt etc who also collectively hosted a show ‘No Country
for Innocent Men’. The Hon’ble Justice who refused to grant the bail was
transferred to a different state by the Hon’ble Supreme Court collegium but
the country could not forget the ache.

29. A PIL was moved by an NGO named ‘With Our Men Everywhere in Need’ or
W.O.M.E.N, challenging the constitutionality of Section 34 of the Raksha Act
in the Hon’ble Allahabad High Court. The Division Bench of Allahabad High
Court
 passed a split verdict regarding the constitutionality of the said section and
granted certificate for appeal in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

30. With Our Men Everywhere in Need appealed against the split verdict and the
matter is now listed in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India for arguments on
merits.