Centre’s appeal against the Delhi High Court’s verdict confirming the stay on the execution of the four death row convicts in the Delhi gang rape and murder case will be heard by the Supreme Court on Friday.
The matter was mentioned for urgent listing on Thursday before a bench made up of Justices N V Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari.
Watch: ‘This is delay tactics’: Delhi gangrape victim’s mother breaks down in court
Centre pleaded that despite the fact that review petitions of all four convicts have been dismissed and curative petitions and mercy pleas of three have been rejected, none could be executed due to the High Court’s stay.
The Delhi HC had on Wednesday ruled that all the four convicts have to be executed together in line with a trial court’s verdict. It also set a week’s deadline for the four convicts to avail the remaining remedies.
{{/usCountry}}The Delhi HC had on Wednesday ruled that all the four convicts have to be executed together in line with a trial court’s verdict. It also set a week’s deadline for the four convicts to avail the remaining remedies.
{{/usCountry}}The court had added that the institutions or authorities concerned will deal with the matter, “as per the law, without further delay” if the convicts choose not to avail of the legal options available.
The Delhi High Court had also slammed the administration for the inexplicable delay in issuing death warrants after the Supreme Court dismissed convicts’ appeals in 2017.
The Centre has challenged the HC verdict in the apex court following an outcry from several sections of the society, including the mother of the victim, who had expressed fears that her daughter’s rapist-murderers may not be hanged ever due to exploitation of legal loopholes by convicts’ counsels.
She had expressed her frustration after a Delhi trial court stayed the execution of all four convicts -- Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31)— indefinitely.
The trial court has asked the four convicts to respond by Friday to a plea by Tihar jail authorities seeking fresh date of their execution.
Tihar jail authorities have pleaded for fresh black warrants citing dismissal of mercy petitions of three convicts by the President of India and absence of any pending application by convicts before courts.
Pawan Gupta is the only convict who has not yet filed a curative petition which is the last legal remedy available to him, after which he has the option of filing a mercy plea before the President of India.
The Tihar jail authorities have also argued that since the convicts have been given a week’s time to exhaust their legal options, it would be fitting for the court to fix a new date for their execution.
The trial court had first issued black warrants on January 7 and fixed January 22 as the day for execution, which was later postponed to February 1 and later postponed indefinitely.
The case pertains to brutal gang-rape and subsequent murder of a 22-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, in south Delhi.
Six people including the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile -- were named as accused in the case.
The trial of the five adults began in a fast-track court in March 2013 and Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide soon after in Tihar Jail, while Mukesh, Vinay, Akshay and Pawan were sentenced to death in September 2013.