sortiwa
[ad_1]
Judge Dharmender Rana on Monday issued the black warrant to execute the four men, who raped and killed a young woman on her way home in December 2012, on March 3 at 6 am. In a six-page order, the judge Rana said putting off the date of execution any further would be “sacrilegious to the rights of the victim for expeditious justice”.
This is the third death warrant to be issued by the court, ordering that the four condemned convicts – Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Thakur (31) – be “hanged by the next until they are dead on March 3”.
The two previous death warrants for January 22 and February 1 had to be deferred by the court in light of mercy petitions and appeals by one or the other convict.
Also read: What Delhi Prison Rules say on executing death row convicts
But the third black warrant may not be the last one.
Lawyer Soutik Banerjee said the death warrant would have to be stayed if one of the four condemned convicts files a mercy petition to the President or exercises his option of a curative petition before the Supreme Court.
Justice Suresh Kait of the high court had earlier this month rejected the Centre’s contention that Tihar authorities should be ordered to execute convicts who do not have an appeal pending. This implies that unless the Supreme Court sets aside this provision, the convicts who were sentenced by a common verdict would have to be sentenced together.
Lawyer Ravi Qazi, the lawyer for Pawan Gupta – the only one of the four convicts who hasn’t filed a curative petition in the Supreme Court or a mercy petition – told judge Dharmender Rana that Pawan intended to file the curative and the mercy petition. Qazi also added that Pawan Gupta told him that he wasn’t aware of the seven days time frame granted to the convicts by the Delhi High Court.
Also read: December 16 gang rape convicts in Tihar Jail on suicide watch
Lawyer AP Singh, who is representing two convicts Vinay and Mukesh, said that he would be filing a second mercy plea for Akshay Thakur since the earlier one did not have the records of his financial status. The law allows convicts to file a mercy petition but it is not unusual for a death row convict to file more than one on grounds that the new one was based on new material which wasn’t available earlier.
Judge Dharmender Rana did not comment on the merits of his proposed mercy petition but stressed that “mere preparation of a fresh mercy petition cannot be a ground to defer the execution of the death warrants”.
The judge also noted that there cannot be any quarrel with the proposition that protection under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution is available to the convicts “till their last breath”.
However, he added, Article 21 merely guarantees an opportunity to the condemned convicts to exercise their legal rights, whether to utilize or not, is a matter to be decided by the condemned convicts. The observation was in context of Pawan Gupta not filing a curative and mercy petition.
“Convict Pawan Gupta cannot be permitted to defeat the ends of justice by simply opting to remain indolent,” the judge underscored.
[ad_2]
Source link
