E-Paper
Fresh death warrant sought in Dec 16 rape case
New Delhi:
New Delhi:
A Delhi court on Wednesday sought the response of the four convicts in the 2012, December 16 gang-rape case after the Tihar jail authorities moved court seeking fresh death warrants to hang them.
Additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana issued notices to the convicts---Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta—and posted the matter for further hearing on March 5.
On March 2, the Delhi court had stopped the hanging till further orders after Gupta, through his counsel AP Singh, had informed the court that he had moved a mercy petition before the President, within couple of minutes of the apex court rejecting his curative petition.
On Wednesday, public prosecutor Irfan Ahmed told the court that the mercy petition was the only legal remedy that was left with Gupta and in wake of its rejection, a fresh death warrant should be issued.
He said no matter is pending in any court in this case and since all the legal remedies had been exhausted, there was no requirement of issuing any notice and the court may straightaway fix the execution date.
The court issued notice and put the matter for Thursday at 2 pm.
The four convicts brutally assaulted and gang-raped the 23-year-old woman on a moving bus on December 16, 2012, before throwing her out of the vehicle. The woman died about two weeks later at a hospital in Singapore.
Ram Singh (35), the fifth accused in the case, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail in 2013. An underage person, who was convicted by a juvenile justice board in 2015, was released from a correctional home after serving a three-year term.
In September 2013, a fast-track court awarded death penalty to the four convicts. It was upheld by the high court in March 2014 and by the Supreme Court in May 2017.
The first date for the execution (January 22) was postponed to February 1 on the grounds that the convicts were yet to avail of all legal remedies. Then, on January 31, the trial court stayed till further orders the execution of the death warrant. On February 17, the court set March 3 as the new date for the hanging of the four convicts.
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea seeking a direction to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to enquire into the mental and physical state of the four death row convicts.
A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar said the petition was not maintainable and asked the petitioner to first file it before NHRC.
