Supreme Court to step in if convicts are not hanged on the set date

New Delhi: A City Court, yesterday, set Mar. 20 as the date for executing the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case. The Court noted there was no legal bar, but rather an obligation to set the date. 

The latest ruling follows three postponements of the hanging in six weeks and adds a sense of finality in a sensational case in which the four had received the death sentence way back in 2013. “Death warrants issued by this Court with respect to condemned convicts Mukesh, Pawan, Akshay and Vinay shall now be carried into effect by hanging the convicts by the neck until they are dead on Mar. 20 at 5.30 am,” said Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana. 

Special Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed, who moved a plea seeking setting the date of hanging, informed the Court that the convicts had exhausted all their legal remedies. Convict Pawan Gupta was the last convict in the case to exhaust the legal remedy of the President’s mercy.  

Rejection of his mercy plea brought an end to all judicial, Constitutional and administrative remedies to which a prisoner is entitled as a right before execution of death sentence. Appearing for Pawan, Vinay and Akshay, advocate A.P. Singh said he would be meeting Pawan and then challenge the rejection of mercy plea. He also wanted to meet Akshay to “discuss with him the future course of action”. 

Supreme Court assurance

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court made it clear that any delay in the scheduled execution of death sentence of the four Nirbhaya gang-rape case convicts on Mar. 20 will see the court itself step in on Mar. 23 to promptly decide the Government’s appeal for permission to separately hang them to death.

The assurance from a three-Judge Bench led by Justice R. Banumathi came while addressing the Government’s apprehension that chances are high that one or other of the four convicts may turn up in Court before  Mar. 20 with a new plea and further delay the execution.

“I am no astrologer… but they [convicts] will find something to delay the Mar. 20 execution… I am not in a hurry to execute them, but the system is suffering when the punishment keeps getting postponed. The convicts have been taking the system for a ride… Even now, it has been over two years since their review petitions were dismissed by the Supreme Court,” Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta submitted.

At this juncture, Justice Banumathi turned to the convicts’ lawyers to come prepared on Mar. 23 as the Court would not entertain any requests for adjournment. The Court would examine the Government’s appeal to hang them separately even if it involves an “extended hearing” on Mar. 23, Justice Banumathi assured.