One after another, defence lawyers in Nirbhaya rape-murder case exploit loopholes in criminal justice system
It is turning out to be an agonising wait for both the hangman and justice seekers in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case. The executioner may have measured the necks of the condemned prisoners, may have weighed them, and may be ready with his noose, but the defence lawyers are determined to exploit every legal loophole to delay the inevitable.
The way they timed filing of curative petitions of individual convicts and followed the same ploy while filing of the mercy plea shows the gaping lacunae in the procedure laid down for the execution of a death sentence.
A Delhi court on Friday issued fresh death warrants for February 1 against the four convicts — Vinay Sharma (26), Mukesh Kumar (32), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Kumar Gupta (25) — in the case. This after the court on Thursday stayed the hanging of the four convicts over a mercy petition filed by one of the convicts.
“I am not reviewing my order to pass a death warrant. There will be a stay on the execution of the death warrant since a mercy plea is there. Jail authorities just have to give me this report saying we will not hang them on January 22,” the Tis Hazari court judge said on Thursday
The defence lawyers have many more pending pleas. After asking the court to first dispose of a pending robbery case against the four convicts before taking a call on their hanging, now they have gone to the apex court challenging the Delhi HC order dismissing Pawan’s claim of being a juvenile at the time of brutally raping Nirbhaya.
The Supreme Court will hear on January 20 Pawan’s plea against a Delhi High Court order dismissing his claim of being a juvenile. A Bench of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bushan and AS Bopanna will hear the plea of Pawan, who moved the SC on Friday challenging the High Court’s order.
Besides, the convict has sought a direction restraining the authorities from executing the death penalty, which has been scheduled for February 1.
He has challenged the High Court’s December 19 order by which it also deprecated the conduct of his advocate for filing forged documents and not appearing in the court.
On Friday, President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy petition of Mukesh. The other three condemned convicts have not yet availed of the constitutional remedy of filing the mercy petitions.
The apex court had on January 14 dismissed the curative petitions of Vinay and Mukesh against their conviction and capital punishment.
In his appeal filed through advocate AP Singh, Pawan has claimed before the High Court that as per his school certificate his date of birth is October 8, 1996. Pawan had earlier moved a trial court with a plea claiming to be juvenile at the time of the offence and it was dismissed on December 21, 2019.
Meanwhile, the Bar Council of Delhi on Saturday issued notice to advocate AP Singh after Delhi High Court had last month directed it to take action against the lawyer for filing “forged” documents and not appearing for hearing.
The Bar body issued notice to Singh for February 28 and sought his reply within two weeks. The HC had imposed Rs 25,000 as costs on Singh.