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Court dismisses plea by Delhi govt, Tihar jail to fix a new date for hanging Dec 16 gang rape convicts
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday dismissed a plea by the Delhi government and the Tihar jail authorities, seeking a fresh date for the hanging of the four convicts
New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday dismissed a plea by the Delhi government and the Tihar jail authorities, seeking a fresh date for the hanging of the four convicts in the December 16 gang rape case. Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana said the date of execution of the death warrants for the convicts---Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma—“cannot be fixed merely on the basis of surmises and conjectures”.
The judge observed that “it is criminally sinful to execute the condemned convicts when the law permits them to live”.
“ Applications at hand are premature and this deserves to be dismissed. However, the state is at liberty to move appropriate application as and when required,” the judge said in his order.
The four convicts had been sentenced to death for brutally raping a paramedic student on a moving bus on December 16, 2012. The victim had later succumbed to the injuries in a hospital at Singapore.
On Friday, appearing for the state, public prosecutor Irfan Ahmed told the court that the mercy petition of Akshay has been dismissed by the President. He said that now no applications, pleas or petitions are pending before any court and hence the court can issue a fresh date to hang the convicts.
He said that keeping in mind the week’s time given to the convicts by the Delhi High Court to avail their legal remedies, the new date should be fixed for February 20.
However, countering his arguments, advocate Vrinda Grover, amicus and counsel for Mukesh, said that the application is premature and deserves to be dismissed. She contended that to fix a date the court would have to presume that the convicts are not going to exercise the legal remedies available to them but the court is also required to presume that the highest constitutional authorities shall decide it only in a particular manner.
Advocate AP Singh, counsel for the three convicts, contended that he was not aware of the hearing and was told only Friday morning about the hearing when he got a call from the Tihar jail authorities.
Additional Sessions Judge, Patiala House had on January 7, 2020 issued a death warrant against four convicts and scheduled their execution on January 22.
Two of the accused, Mukesh and Vinay Sharma then filed curative petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the May 2017 judgment of the top court which had upheld their conviction and death sentence. The Supreme Court dismissed their curative petitions on January 14.
Immediately after that, Mukesh had filed his mercy plea before the President which led to the execution date of the four convicts being postponed to February 1.
The mercy plea by Mukesh was rejected by the President on January 29 while Vinay Sharma’s mercy plea was turned down on February 1. Akshay filed his curative petition in Supreme Court which was dismissed on January 30. His mercy plea was rejected by the President on February 5.
Meanwhile, the additional sessions judge, Patiala House court had on January 31 stayed the execution of the convicts citing the fact that all the convicts have not exhausted their legal remedies.
