Section 277 ter: Armed or gang rape causing grievous harm or death

Firm annotation

Section 277 ter creates no offence of its own. It is the result-aggravation provision for the two most serious rape tiers in the Code: Section 276 paragraph three, covering rape committed while carrying a firearm or an explosive, by using a weapon, or by two or more persons acting together in the nature of a gang rape, and Section 277 paragraph four, the corresponding tier where the victim is a child not over fifteen. It does not attach to Section 276 paragraph two, the tier for causing the person to believe the offender has a firearm or an explosive, which no result-aggravation provision in this group reaches, and it should not be confused with Section 277/2, which performs the same function for the base tiers in Section 276 paragraph one and Section 277 paragraphs one and two and carries materially lighter penalties. The grading here is the heaviest in this group. Where the offence causes grievous bodily harm, as defined in Section 297, the offender is liable to death or to imprisonment for life. Where it causes death, the punishment is death alone, with no alternative available to the court. As with the other result-qualified aggravations, no intention as to the result need be proved; what must be established is the underlying offence at the relevant tier and the causal link to the result.