If execution is delayed, SC to hear on March 23 Govt’s plea for hanging 4 convicts separately
Four convicts of the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder will be hanged on March 20 at 5.30 am, according to the death warrant issued by a Delhi Court on Thursday.
However, the Supreme Court on Thursday said it will step in on March 23 if convicts are not hanged on March 20. It would hear on March 23 the appeal filed by the Centre challenging the Delhi High Court order that the four death row convicts have to be executed simultaneously. The apex court said it would examine the legal issue arising out of the case on whether there could be separate hanging in a case where there are more than one death-row convict.
In Delhi court on Thursday, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Dharmendra Rana fixed the new date after being informed by the Delhi Government that the convicts have exhausted all their legal remedies.
The death-row convicts are Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).
Their lawyer told the court that there was no legal impediment for it in proceeding to fix the date of execution. The Delhi Government had on Wednesday moved court seeking fresh date for the execution hours after President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy petition of Pawan.
The Delhi Government had told the court that all legal remedies of the convicts have been exhausted and nothing survives now. The lawyer for the prosecution also said no notice was required. The court had on Monday deferred till further order the hanging of the convicts that was scheduled for Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in the apex court on Thursday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the Bench, headed by Justice R Banumathi, that the trial court has fixed March 20 as date of execution of the four convicts who have exhausted all their legal remedies.
Mehta told the Bench, also comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and S Bopanna, that these convicts have made a mockery of the system by their delaying tactics and taken it for a ride. The Bench said it would hear the matter on merits on March 23 and made it clear that no adjournments will be granted.
The execution of their death warrants has been deferred thrice so far due to delays by them in exhausting legal remedies.
A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as ‘Nirbhaya’ (fearless), was gang raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in South Delhi on December 16, 2012. She had died after a fortnight.
Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail days after the trial began in the case. The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.
