Uber rape case: Cab driver Shiv Kumar Yadav found guilty on all charges

A Delhi court on Tuesday convicted Shiv Kumar Yadav, a driver with Uber, in the December 2014 rape case of a woman working with a finance company, reports said. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on 23 October. Yadav has been convicted under sections related to rape, endangering the life of a woman while raping her, abduction and criminal intimidation, CNN-IBN reported. He may face life imprisonment for the charges. The Times of India quoted special public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava as saying that there was sufficient evidence on record to hold Yadav guilty, and that all prosecution witnesses supported the case against him. Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja had on 7 October reserved the verdict after concluding hearing final arguments from both the sides in the case. [caption id=“attachment_2475294” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo. Image courtesy: AFP[/caption] In December last year, a 27-year old woman was raped by Yadav, a driver with Uber. The woman was said to have hired the taxi to return home from a dinner party in Gurgaon. According to the police, the woman had dozed off on the back seat of the car, and she later woke up to find that the car had stopped at a secluded spot. When she tried to raise an alarm, the driver is said to have assaulted and raped her. According to the prosecution, the incident took place on the night of 5 December, 2014 when the victim, a finance executive working in Gurgaon, was heading back to her house at Inderlok. The driver Yadav was arrested on 7 December, 2014 from Mathura and is currently in judicial custody. The Supreme Court had earlier set aside the Delhi High Court order allowing the accused to re-examine 13 prosecution witnesses, including the victim. After Yadav was arrested in relation to the case, it came to light that he had a history of alleged sexual assault and had five cases of sexual assault registered against him. After the incident, the Delhi government had banned several app-based companies and had cancelled the licence application of Uber. However, the government act of cancelling the licence was set aside by the Delhi High Court. Last month, the woman voluntarily ended her lawsuit against Uber in a US court, which she had filed in January, according to a Reuters report. This was after Uber argued that the driver had a contract with Uber BV, a Netherlands-based entity which had no US operations. With inputs from PTI