Pune BPO employee rape and murder case: Judgment on convicts' pleas reserved

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday reserved its judgment on a plea by two death row convicts aganist their execution in the 2007 Pune BPO employee rape and murder case. Hearings concluded before a division bench of Justice Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Justice Swapna Joshi. The bench had last week stayed the execution scheduled for June 24, till further orders.
Purushottam Borate (38) and Pradeep Kokade (32), who were scheduled to be executed on June 24, 2019, have have claimed that the "inordinate delay" in executing them violated their fundamental rights and have urged the high court to commute their death sentence to life imprisonment.
Borate and Kokade were sentenced to death for raping and murdering a 22-year-old woman employee of a BPO company in Pune. The Bombay high court confirmed the death sentence in September 2012, and the verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2015. The Governor of Maharashtra rejected their mercy petitions in April 2016 and the President of India in May 2017. On April 10, 2019, a Pune sessions court had issued warrants setting their date of execution as June 24.
Advocate Yug Chaudhry, counsel for the petitioners, said that there was a four year delay in executing the death penalty after the Supreme Court verdict. The advocate said that the delay violated the fundamental right of the prisoners who suffered mental trauma not knowing whether they would live to see another day.
Advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhakoni and additional public prosecutor Aruna Pai representing the state, and additional solicitor general Anil Singh and advocate Hiten Venegoankar for the Centre have refuted the allegation that there was an "inordinate delay".