Delhi court defers hanging of 4 Nirbhaya case convicts till further orders

Delhi court Monday deferred till further order the hanging of four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case pending disposal of a convict's mercy plea, saying it was "an important constitutional legal principle".

All the convicts in the case were to be hanged together on Tuesday at 6 AM.

 

The execution of their death warrants has now been deferred thrice due to delays in exhausting legal remedies.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said the death sentence cannot be executed pending disposal of mercy petition of convict Pawan Gupta.

"Despite stiff resistance from the victim's side, I am of the opinion that any condemned convict must not meet his Creator with a grievance in his bosom that the courts of the country have not acted fairly in granting him an opportunity to exhaust his legal remedies," the judge said.

"As a cumulative effect of the discussion, I am of the opinion that the death sentence cannot be executed pending the disposal of the mercy petition of the convict. It is hereby directed that the execution of death warrants against all the convicts, scheduled for March 3 at 6 AM, is deferred till further orders," the judge added.

 

The court passed the order on Pawan's plea seeking to stay the execution as he filed a mercy petition before the President on Monday.

"I have no hesitation in holding that mercy petition is an important constitutional legal principle 'Ubi jus ubi remedium', i.e., where there is a right, there is a remedy, I am of the opinion that the application is very much maintainable," the judge said in a 6-page order.

 

While it was reserving the order on Pawan's fresh plea to stay the death warrant for Tuesday morning, the court had rapped the convict's lawyer for acting so late in filing the curative and mercy pleas.

 

"You (counsel) are playing with fire. You should be cautious," the judge told the counsel. Pawan's curative plea was rejected by the Supreme Court earlier in the day.

The trial court had earlier in the day dismissed Pawan's and co-accused Akshay Kumar Singh's applications for staying their death warrants. However, Pawan's lawyer, A P Singh, said he has filed a mercy plea and execution ought to be stayed. The court, thereafter, asked him to come post lunch to argue his case.

In the post-lunch hearing, the court pulled up Singh saying, "You are playing with fire, you should be cautious" and while considering that hearing was scheduled for tomorrow morning, added "one wrong move by anybody, and you know the consequences".

 

Tihar jail authorities, during the hearing, said the ball is in the government's court after the filing of the mercy petition, and the judge has no role for now.

"The plea is not maintainable... it is for the government to decide whether to carry on the sentence or not. At this juncture the courts cannot intervene as such intervention would be merely based upon presumptions and conjectures," the jail authorities said.

 

They said the President will seek a status report from the jail on Pawan's mercy plea and when that happens, it will suo motu stay the execution. The authorities, however, informed the court that they had received the information about filing of the mercy petition.