Mumbai: The Bombay High Court yesterday confirmed the death sentence on rogue driver Santosh M. Mane, who hijacked a state transport bus and killed nine people, besides injuring 36, two years ago in Pune.
A division bench comprising Justice V M Kanade and Justice P D Kode termed it as “the rarest of rare cases” and upheld and confirmed the verdict of the Pune Additional Sessions Court giving the death penalty to the accused.
“This is an exceptional and rarest of rare cases where the crime is so cruel, diabolical and revolting so as to shock the collective conscience of the society. In rarest of rare cases where collective conscience of the community is so shocked, it expects the court to inflict death penalty irrespective of its personal opinion as regards desirability or otherwise of retaining the death penalty,” Justice Ranade and Justice Kode observed in their ruling.
At 8.15 am on January 25, 2012 Mane, a driver with the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation, was denied a change from night duty to day duty by his superiors.
In a fit of rage, he hijacked the bus from the Swargate Bus Depot in the heart of the city and drove wildly on the wrong side and on one-way routes for 16 km before he was forced to stop.
Pune city and traffic police gave him a hot chase, ordering him to stop and even firing six rounds at the bus tyres and at him. Mane (now 38) was somehow stopped by members of the public, who thrashed him before the police apprehended him. A Pune judge found Mane guilty of the prosecution charges and pronounced the death verdict on April 8, 2013.
IANS
